Armored Heart
by SlayQueen16
Summary: (Fem!Tony) Toni Stark wasn't one to, you know, 'fall in love.' She preferred her one-night stands thank you very much, but will America's Golden Boy, Steve Rogers, change that armored heart of hers?
1. Yes to One Night Stands

**Story: Armored Heart**

 **Chapter One: Yes to One Night Stands**

Almost there. Almost there. And… got it! Iron Maiden just installed the proper reactor to officially power up her new and improved Stark Tower that she bought on a sudden whim. She smirked proudly and flew out of the river bottom then took to the night sky. The water droplets rolled off her red and gold armor, drying it almost instantly as she picked up speed. The beautiful lights of New York were dazzling, even more so when flying through it at a rather intimate proximity, a sight she'd never get used to.

"How's it going? Has it stabilized yet?" she asked through the coms that naturally hooked her up to all of her contacts in her phone - way better than bluetooth.

"Looking good," Pepper said. "Things are... happening." she sounded incredibly uncertain.

"Well, that's… something," Toni laughed shortly. "I can see the lights on from all the way over there, so that means something's working at least." she said as she soared through New York with people, mostly kids, snapping pictures of her. The novelty seemed to never wear off. It certainly helped boost her ego. "It's kind of like Christmas, but with, you know, more me."

"Ha! You're hilarious," Pepper said sarcastically.

The brunette arrived. She stepped onto the platform atop and outside the Stark Tower. Each step she took removed each item of her suit. She couldn't help the pride swelling in her and the definite ego boost at the fact that she designed all of this and was able to achieve what man's been trying to do for about a hundred years after just a long weekend in her lab without a single interruption. Clean energy. "How's it looking?" Toni asked her best friend that could tolerate the inflated ego while also keeping her grounded.

"Fine… I think," Pepper said, clearly not getting any of it.

She looked intently at the screen, not really understanding it one bit. The levels on the screen were moderately high and green; she figured that meant it was a good thing. Her strengths lied in organization, planning, preparing, and dealing with people not inventions and computer language. That was all Toni and being an organizer who basically kept the company afloat when it came to people and due dates that was fine by her.

The billionaire appeared right behind the strawberry blonde to inspect the levels and numbers over her shoulder. Pepper looked over and saw the smile form on Toni's lips and took it as a good sign. She knew the dark haired woman like the back of her hand and knew even though the playgirl could be the most insufferable human being in the world, she had a lot of positive attributes and she had certainly done a lot of growing up over the years. So yeah, she knew things were going well.

After all, Pepper wouldn't be able to stand Toni at this point if she was anything remotely like she was four years ago. What with the heavy drinking — albeit still heavier than it should be — the hard partying, and the countless men she kicked out in the middle of the night after one-night stands. All of that still occurred, but not to nuclear levels like before. Now, every time Toni came back from somewhere, when she clearly did something stupid, Pepper didn't want to pop her head off or scream until she went hoarse.

Which is definitely an improvement.

"I say it's about that time to celebrate," the brunette said. She grabbed a bottle and looked at it. "Ha, wine! It helps me drink!" she laughed shortly.

"Toni, wait, maybe we should—"

Too late, she popped the top off and the alcoholic liquid sprayed and painted the white tiles a deep purple. Pepper frowned at the obvious mess the billionaire caused and how she took a big swig straight from the bottle uncaringly. She was glad that there was another one for her and at least the billionaire had the audacity to spill it on the tile opposed to the carpet — wine left a permanent stain after all. It was clear the playgirl was still a mess, but hey she supposed everyone was a mess in someway.

"This building isn't christened until somebody spills something right?" she laughed.

"I guess," the strawberry blonde smiled with a long sigh, actually pouring hers into a glass. "So, what's the next big project for the great Ms. Stark?" she said it like she was interviewing America's Next Top Model.

The philanthropist took a seat on one of the white chairs and sat up straight, playing along with her friend's game. She crossed a leg over the other, folded her arms on her knees, and pulled off a perfect hoity-toity expression. The strawberry blonde supposed that she pulled it off so well because the brunette pretty much grew up in a very pompous lifestyle with probably very many etiquette obsessed people who cared more about image than what lies within. I mean, who names their child Antonia Elizabeth Stark unless the family was a member of at least three country clubs?

"Well, tonight, I'm spending my time with my best friend the very lovely Ms. Potts," she said playfully as took a swig from the bottle.

"Very nice. Is there anyone else you want to celebrate with? Like that special someone?"

She didn't want to play this little game anymore. Toni deflated faster than a popped balloon. She didn't like the fact that Pepper kept bringing up her lack of a love life, you know, beyond the one night stands. It wasn't like her friend was trying to be spiteful by bringing it up. No, quite the contrary. She wanted to set her up with a permanent boyfriend, someone who was a constant in her life in a romantic sense. And wasn't like Toni didn't want constant sex with someone; no, that wasn't an issue, it was the fact that she didn't want to deal with someone's baggage and possible clinginess. She cringed at the thought.

"Pepper," she began.

"I know, I know, just hear me out," she said putting her hand up with a friendly smile. "I have a cousin who's single, nice, solid, and—"

"Let me guess, wanting to settle down, right?" the brunette asked with a sigh. "How many times do I have to tell you? I'm happy being single with just friends like you and Happy…. I mean, why does society to depict women as these needy little—"

"Ms. Stark," Jarvis' voice interrupted her little rant before it really got started, "Agent Coulson is requesting you."

"Well, you can tell him he can stick it where the sun don't shine. I'm having fun right now," she said through gritted teeth rather ironically.

"I'm afraid he's insisting."

"Oh let him in," Pepper said rolling her eyes, standing and walking over towards the door. "More the merrier."

"Ugggghhh, Pepper!" Toni whined, throwing her head back in exasperation. "I don't wanna deal with him right now!"

The strawberry blonde rolled her eyes once more and answered the door, letting Coulson in. Immediately, Toni stood up and began yelling about a security threat and generally getting nothing from her A.I. Jarvis who was effectively ignoring this. Pepper shook her head even though she continued to smile. Coulson simply took at as a uniquely 'Stark Moment' and set out what he came here to do. He handed a folder towards the dark haired woman.

"I need to you to look this over," he said.

"Ugh, I don't like to be handed things," she told him, looking at it disdainfully.

"Well, I love to be handed things, so here let's trade," she switched the wine glass with the folder and then she took the brunette's bottle and handed her said folder. "See how it all works out?" she smiled and took a sip from the bottle.

Toni sighed and threw the folder on the coffee table before looking over at Coulson. She was still miffed about what they did about a year ago and yet now they choose to come crawling back like a battered house wife demanding her attention again. She really wished Pepper didn't let him in because honestly if she answered the door she would do it just to slam it in his face.

"Yeah, my consulting hours are like every other Thursday. It's Tuesday and I'm off the clock," she said, flopping back back down on her chair and crossing a leg over the other with her arms resting across the back. "So why don't you find somebody less volatile, less self-obsessed, and, oh, a team player?"

Coulson briefly looked away, but his convictions were always on point.

"We need you, Ms. Stark," he said. "I suggest you look this file over before snubbing S.H.I.E.L.D. All of what you need to know about associates and our intentions are in there." he pointed to the file she tossed away like it was nothing. She followed where his finger pointed and over towards it with annoyance and general apathy.

"Fine," she said, sounding like she was whining, "if it'll get you off my back."

She stood up flipped it open and looked through it. At first it was a general sweep through as she pulled up the files on her database with a flick of her hands. Many files on the Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Captain America appeared. Both Toni and Pepper's eyes were absorbing the images and videos passing before their eyes of these people in combat. The brunette couldn't look away from the man clad in red, white, and blue with a giant round shield in hand. She couldn't help this bitterness in the pit of her stomach; that was the guy that she was intended to be like to gain her father's love and attention.

"I'm taking a plane out to DC tonight," Pepper said softly.

Toni looked over at her with a small pout. "Why so soon? I thought we were going to hang out," she said.

"No, you've got homework. A lot of homework," she said. "Once you get that done, we can go have fun."

The brunette pouted, "You know, all work and no play makes Toni a very dull girl."

"Psh, you'll never be boring," the strawberry blonde walked away from her and appeared beside Coulson. "Is there any chance you're going to DC or anywhere remotely close?"

"Yeah, I can drop you," he said, as they headed towards the door, ready to leave the genius to her muses.

"Great! So how are you and the cellist?" she asked, making small talk.

Coulson shrugged, as lovely and classy as she was they ended it on good terms because their careers simply got in the way. She needed to move all the way out of state to further her passion as a cellist. He respected that, considering he was the exact same way. Career and duty came first. Especially considering how important he considered his job to the world's safety.

"We broke up. She moved back to Portland."

"What…? Boo!" Pepper said.

Toni didn't get to hear the rest of their little conversation as they left the room and shut the door behind them. Plus, she wasn't particularly listening to them anyway. She was already immersed deeply in the material at hand. She sat on the couch as she continued to look over that file Coulson gave her. She couldn't help the curiousity. What was so important that they needed the Iron Maiden to help them out after snubbing her like that? Well, she supposed Dr. Banner's research on Thermonuclear Astrophysics was a good start.

It was going to be a long night.

Well, Toni Stark wasn't the only having a long night, long day, a long everything. Steve Rogers, Captain America, was at a lost — at a complete list of what to do with himself. The war was won, his friends were either dead or obscenely old, and he had no clue what to do. S.H.I.E.L.D. provided him clothes, an apartment, and what happened during the last seventy years. But they didn't provide a time machine to send him back where things made sense and where he belonged.

No, he was left to his own devices to stew in his own mild depression. He decided to go out, get some fresh air, and cheer himself up. He brought out a notepad and a pencil, wanting to do something familiar in his home city.

Steve sat out at one of the open cafe just above a building that read 'Stark Tower'. Stark. He remembered Howard Stark. He was outrageously wealthy, popular with the ladies, a genius, and most importantly to him the man responsible for making him who he is today. Without Howard he'd be a scrawny little asthmatic kid and wouldn't be able to do any of things he did. According to S.H.I.E.L.D. he had a daughter….

"Hey, are you ready to order?" a young woman asked.

He looked up from absentmindedly drawing what was on his mind and what was actually there to look up at the waitress.

"Sure. Just a coffee for me," he said, smiling politely.

Her eyes looked down at the sketch the super soldier drew. She smiled at the outline of Stark Tower and the tiny dot of Iron Maiden flying towards the entrance ramp. It was a pretty good interpretation.

"Nice job," she commented. "I see you and everybody else loves to watch Iron Maiden make her way across New York, snapping pictures and everything. We've definitely gotten more foot traffic since she put up Stark Tower."

Should he introduce himself to Howard's kid or just leave it alone. She wasn't Howard, but in a way she kind of was. Maybe she had some of the same personality traits, hopefully not the annoying ones, and— And what? Become friends and constantly talk about the good old days? That sounded… depressing. He needed to move on to this time period, this century. But he just didn't know what to move on to.

The waitress took notice of Steve zoning out while looking at the tower. "I'll be back with your order soon," she said before leaving him to his own devices.

After a moment he shook his head and said, "Did you say something?" but she was gone.

Steve went home again, sitting in his dark and empty apartment and looking through the files S.H.I.E.L.D. provided.

His mind still lingered on meeting and getting to know Howard's kid. He flipped open her file, deciding to just get a feel of who she is. At the top he saw a little picture of a dark haired woman, looking as if she didn't know her picture was taken — knowing S.H.I.E.L.D. she probably didn't. And she definitely had some of Howard's features: dark, long hair pulled into a ponytail; dark eyes; olive skin. She was very pretty simply because Howard, being one of the riches men alive at the time, could've had any beautiful woman he wanted for a wife and a mother of his children.

Now, what was her name? Antonia Elizabeth Stark. Whoa, that's a name alright. It must be a rich person thing to name your kids obnoxiously fancy names. At least she didn't have two middle names. Did she have a nickname that would make things easier to call her by like Ana or something? He looked down and saw that it was Toni. She went by Toni? He hoped she wasn't severely bullied in school.

How old is she? He looked down at the sheet in front of him and saw that she just turned twenty-nine this past month. Sheesh, Howard sure waited a long time. After all, Toni and Steve, biologically that is, are the same age. Wait… maybe just maybe… no.

He shook his head, bringing that train of thought to a screeching halt. He couldn't seriously be considering something happening between him and Howard's daughter. He may be lonely and everything, but he didn't know her and Howard would probably come back to haunt him for the rest of Steve's days.

The stress was driving him crazy.

So later on he went to the local gym during the odd hours of the night. He couldn't sleep and that meant he had his privacy since it didn't seem likely people would be up at this hour. Either way, he needed to work off the tension and stress that seemed to line every inch of him. And he worked it off via punching bags.

He started off slow, deciding not to tire himself out too quickly. But flashes of memory appeared before his eyes: ones of his buddies getting shot at, Bucky flying off the side of a transport cart to his death, Peggy saying a tearful goodbye to him, and sinking the enemy's ship into the Atlantic ocean. Before he knew it a fatal punch had his punching bag flying off the chain and smacking the back wall. He was sweating and fighting for breath, stress still present but alleviated just a little bit.

He turned to get another bag and continue his 'routine' until his eyes met a familiar-ish face. He paused for a moment before lifting another bag and hanging it up on its chain. Then Steve began punching at it again, going about his thing as if he wasn't there.

"Captain Rogers," Fury said announcing his presence, "isn't it a late for workout routines?"

"Sir, I've been asleep for over seventy years; I've had my fill," he said, stopping his brutal series of punches before turning to face S.H.I.E.L.D.'s leader.

"I get it," Fury acknowledged with a small nod. "You're feeling out of place and a little stir crazy, but I've got something that'll take your mind off of things: a mission." he handed the file to the super soldier.

Steve looked back and forth between the oh so familiar tesseract and the coated man. He was trying to decide whether or not this would be a good cause to get behind because the loneliness was pushing him to move forward in this regardless of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s intentions. But he was still able to think clearly about this before jumping in all willy-nilly and doing something incredibly stupid.

"What do you need the cube for?" he asked.

"We're in the clean energy business and that cube supplies an endless amount of energy, so you see why we would want it," Fury said. "But, of course, someone stole it, a guy named Loki and, you see, that's where you come in. Take him down and get it back. That's your mission, Rogers."

It sounded pretty solid. Maybe just maybe he can do something with his life now and find a place he might belong. It was a start.


	2. Meetings and Greetings

**Guest: Thanks for the encouragement. It's nice.**

 **AnonMetro: Oh yeah, if you read my other stories I get graphic with my sex scenes.**

 **Chapter Two: Meetings and Greetings**

So Steve agreed to come on board and help get the tesseract back for S.H.I.E.L.D. He was a little apprehensive for obvious reasons, but at least this gave him something to do opposed to mope around and contemplate whether or not to contact old friends or meet their children and grandchildren. At least helping S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't horribly depress him. It gave him just a tiny ray of hope.

"It's an honor to meet you, Captain Rogers," Coulson said, trying to keep a big stupid grin off his face.

Steve returned an awkward smile to the man that was hovering over him and grinning strangely at him. Never had he ever been one to take any sort of flattery well; it always made him feel a little uncomfortable. He figured just because he was a super soldier didn't mean everyone needed to treat him like the queen of England.

"Like wise," he replied.

"I remember when we found you in the ice. I watched you while you were sleeping."

Well, now he was officially creeped out. Coulson may not have meant it that way, but how else are you supposed to take something like that? He dropped his head, unable to look him in the face in this moment. It was too awkward.

"I-I-I mean I saw you sleeping there in the-the ice. I wasn't really watching," he stuttered horribly, unable to recover properly. "You know, a lot's changed since the 1940's," he said, trying to change the subject. "But I kind of based your new costume off of the old design."

"I guess some things just don't go out of style. That's nice to know," he said.

Coulson actually let out a soft breath of relief that he didn't actually make too much of a fool of himself in front of his childhood hero Captain America. Too much of a fool that is. Still pretty foolish though.

"Rogers, we've located Loki," a S.H.I.E.L.D. said near the computer screen.

Great. Steve is thrown back into the fray, back to something familiar. He wondered what this 'Loki' would be like.

"Kneel before me. Kneel before me. KNEEL BEFORE ME!"

Everyone in at the elaborate party was rounded up like cattle and encircled by several Lokis, keeping them trapped there. They were terrified, so reluctantly they knelt to the cemented floor.

"See?" the Asgardian said, looking at the people before him. "You humans are made to be ruled. All of you seek someone to control you. And who's better to do it than—"

"Not by men like you!" an elderly man said, standing. He couldn't stand hearing his words any longer, stopping him mid-speech. "Filth, disgust, using intimidation I—"

Without a word Loki shot a blast from his scepter at the old man out of spite. But suddenly a red white and blue shield blocked and redirected the blast back towards its castor. And when the owner of the shield stood it was revealed that none other than Captain America was here to stop Loki.

"You know, the last time someone in Germany tried to rule over everybody else he shot himself," Steve said, approaching the Asgardian, shield on his arm.

"Ah, the man out of time," he said, standing up rather shakily.

"I'm not the one who's out of time," he said.

With that Steve threw his shield at Loki's head to which Loki deflected with his scepter, sending the shield skidding to the floor. People scattered to get away from the two men fighting, seeing that it's a perfect opportunity to vacate the premise.

Steve went in for a punch since Loki was distracted from the throw of his shield. But it seemed the Asgardian was expecting that and threw him off with a particularly hard whack from his scepter. Steve went flying, smacking into the cement below.

He went to get up and continue to fight back, but the butt of the scepter held him there at the back of his head.

"Our guy's all over the place out there," Natasha said from her ship. "Send in some kind of back up, Fury."

X

The billionaire playgirl was soundly asleep on her new pretty couch: the file open and about to fall off her lap, her head at an awkward angle with her hand resting on her chin and jaw, and her mouth slightly agape, letting out a soft snore and a little drool. She looked peaceful. Well, as peaceful as anyone would look when studying a completely new branch of science, such as nuclear material, could look. So yeah, it was a much needed rest in the middle of the night.

RING!

"OOOWAHWAHA!" she spluttered, body flailing all around. She knocked the manila folder across the room, its contents shrewn all around. She even ended up hitting the back of her head on the wall. Her hand knocked down the lamp to her left, then hit her knee on the coffee table, and finally her right hand smacked her forehead. "Ow! Fuck!" she cursed loudly in pain. "Who the hell is calling me at," she looked up at the stylistic clock across the wall, "at two in the morning?!"

She answered the phone angrily, "What the hell do you want, you son of a bitch?!"

"Ooh, Stark, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" the voice on the other end of the line was none other than Nick Fury, director of S.H.I.E.L.D. and pain in her ass extraordinaire. He was exactly the person she wanted to hear from at this moment at this moment of the early hours of the morning. Especially when she was getting much needed rest memorizing and understanding exactly what made a nuclear warhead in space tic. Yeah, most definitely.

"My mother's dead, you idiot," she grumbled.

Then she stood, placing a hand on her hip, and hearing the steady pop-pop when stretching her back. When pop of her neck stung from her poor sleeping choices she hissed in pain. She ran a hand down her face and felt her make-up smear on her hand. She sighed loudly in annoyance, but figured she'd just correct it later when she wasn't so grouchy or pissed.

"Well, somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed," he said matter of factly.

"Blow me, Fury," she said bitingly. "What do you want from me?"

"We need you to get our top enemy. Our man out there is getting his ass handed to him," he said. "You wanna save a dumbass in distress?"

"Fine, I'll play along. Who's ass am I saving?" she humored him.

"Captain America," he said rather smugly, knowing exactly how she felt about that certain superhero. "I'm sure you've heard of him."

Saving Captain America? Why did that sound so appealing? Maybe because he's the shadow she could never get out of when it came to her father's love and expectations? Yeah, that sounded about right. After all, that… guy was all that her dad would talk about, constantly comparing her to him, and telling war stories about him. Every time Captain America came up in conversation about how he's her dad's greatest creation she wanted to leave the room. Desperately. So, to save somebody so great, renowned, and the guy she was supposed to be the spitting image of — in a heroic and moral standpoint that is — sounded like a trip to the hardware store to her.

"I'll be there in five," she said, pressing end on her touch screen phone. "Jarvis, get me my suit. It's time to save the captain."

She went flying across the night sky clad in red and gold armor she saw exactly what was going on. It seemed wonderbread really was getting his ass handed to him. Each punch or kick he made was deflected, he even got a smack to the face by that staff, and well his shield was no help with it being on the other side of the pavement. It seemed that he really did need help or she would dare say it he might die. And no matter how she blamed him for her father's lack of presence in her childhood (too busy looking for Steve to pay attention to her) Toni knew she couldn't let him die without seeing if he was all that's cracked up to be.

So far he wasn't.

"Jarvis, override their PA system," she said, "and play something that I like."

"Yes, ma'am."

Immediately, her favorite music genre sounded throughout the outside sound system for all to hear in the little city in Germany. She could practically feel the hatred coming off Natasha in waves from her ship. It was so damn satisfying since about a year or two ago she profiled the billionaire as a volatile, self-obsessed, team hater. Even though those things were technically true she didn't think she was so insufferable that it would boot her from a project. But who's laughing now…? She was. That's who's laughing.

"Miss me, Romanoff?" she teased.

She didn't wait for an answer as she flew up on Loki, blasting him right in the stomach and knocking him off his feet. She landed casually next to Captain America, showing off how much weaponry she had jam packed in her suit. And she pointed it all at Loki to try and intimidate him.

"Aw, poor British man, did your life flash before your eyes?" she teased, smirk ever growing. "Cup of tea, cup of tea, almost got shagged, cup of tea?"

She watched as the Asgardian looked about ready to pop from rage, but he schooled himself and raised his hands up in defeat. Honestly, she kinda wanted to see him pop like a pimple just to play around and crack more jokes, but it seemed simpleness was the route Loki chose.

"Ms. Stark," she suddenly heard.

She frowned in confusion. Who the hell in the adult world called her Ms. Stark? She looked over and realized exactly who called her that. And as much as she wanted to say that she wasn't just a little bit turned on she'd be lying through her teeth.

Her eyes swept up his entire form rather greedily. He was decked out completely in his Captain America costume: cowl up, shield on his arm and all that jazz. His muscles were bulky and rippling — which honestly was one of the fastest ways to get her to jump into bed with a guy. She would honestly lick him all over, and love to feel those muscles flex and move underneath her fingers. Especially when he was all sweaty and battle worn. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts before doing something really friggin' stupid.

Then her eyes checked out his face, wondering if it was just as gorgeous as his muscular body. And as much as she hated to admit it when he pulled up his cowl down she couldn't insult that face if she tried. It was tan, cheekbones were high; his eyes were baby blue, and nicely shaped; and his lips were plump, pretty, and pink.

 _Dammit, Dad_ , she thought. _Why did you honestly have to make my perfect type of guy I'd immediately bone when I hate him so much? This is torture. You jerk… you mad genius._

Wait, didn't he say her name? That means she should probably say something before her suit short circuits from the drool she's quickly producing.

"Captain," she said as evenly as she could, glad that no one could see her face.

Curiously, she wondered if he had the booty too as he walked away towards Romanoff's ship. Her eyes dropped down to those butt cheeks. They were so round and firm underneath that spandex material and moved underneath that spandex so nicely every time he took a step. He did. Damn, was there any physical flaws to this guy? Seriously.

…

All of them were aboard the transport ship. Loki was tied and strapped to one of the seats, not making eye contact with anyone. But the two that detained him were looking between each other rather subtly and making silent judgement calls.

Steve was looking at Toni as she took her Iron Maiden helmet off and hold it underneath her arm. He had to say she was just as pretty as her picture on that file was. She was a pretty woman with an oval face, light olive complexion, and almond-shaped brown eyes. And she seemed fairly nice, a little too flashy, but nice. Howard seemed to have raised a pretty good daughter.

Toni, too, was looking at the guy she blamed for her childhood problems. She couldn't stop checking him out and hated that she couldn't insult his physical appearance aside from the spangly costume which could easily drop to the floor of her bedr—

Again, she had to shake her head and clear her thoughts before getting carried away or doing something stupid. But maybe, just maybe, she could be nice and make some small talk. Maybe.

"Well, that was easy," she said, breaking the ice. "World imperil isn't so bad, huh?"

"I don't remember it being that easy," he said, turning towards Loki briefly before looking back down at her. "That guy packs a wallop."

"I don't know, it was pretty easy, sweet cheeks. You probably need to tone up, do some water aerobics, get those old man muscles slicked up," she teased, doing a quick once over as if to say she was displeased by his physical appearance even though she really wasn't before she looked back up at his face.

"What?" he asked.

He was confused and put off by her sudden hostile attitude. What was her problem? He had been nothing but polite in this crude new world. So what was with the attitude? Well, considering her flashy entrance with that suit and all its big shiny state of the art weaponry he kind of figured she'd be a little egotistical or 'big' personality wise. Maybe he was wrong about Howard doing a good job. But that didn't explain the attitude she had towards him. What did he ever do to her?

"It's kind of like calisthenics for old people. You've gotta lot time to make up for from, you know, being a capsicle," she said, he could see from her face that she was not kidding.

They glared at each other, mere inches apart. He didn't appreciate being talked to like that. Weren't women supposed to be sweet, polite, and modest? Not a foul mouth bad ass who relishes in attention with over the top entrances. He supposed that was another thing that changed during the last seventy years. He'd be fine with it, wouldn't bother him in the slightest if she wasn't so mean about it for crying out loud.

On the other hand, Toni tried to keep her breathing under control. She didn't know why she was getting so worked up. Sure, she resented him and found his old ways kind of annoying, but also found him really attractive too — come on, they just didn't make guys like Steve anymore. So she was wrestling with her sexual desires and her hatred for this guy.

Suddenly, there was a loud boom of lightning that shook the entire ship.

Loki immediately stiffened, clearly fearful of whatever was out there.

Steve took a deep breath, pulled his eyes away from the those deep brown orbs of Toni's, and looked over towards Loki.

"What? Scared of a little lightening?" he asked.

Three pairs of eyes bored into the Asgardian.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows," the Asgardian said.

As if on cue the top of the ship shook as if something large landed on top of it not as if it was struck by lightning. Everyone steadied themselves from the violent shake and regained their footing. But when they recovered from this an angry large blonde man with a hammer busted through entrance ramp with said hammer with one target in mind. Loki.

Iron Maiden immediately went to intercept, but the hammer smack her right in the chest and sent her crashing back on her back. So, Thor got what he wanted, his brother, and flew on out with a swing of Mjolnir. He was gone, leaving behind a thoroughly confused Captain America and Iron Maiden. And now they're lead on the tesseract was gone and so was their enemy sent out to dominate the world.

"Ugh, stupid blonde bastard," Toni grumbled.

She stood up and headed towards the exit to which the other blonde, that didn't attack her, grabbed her arm and kept her right there. Brown eyes turned to his baby blues in confusion and mild annoyance. What did he think he was doing? She could fly too and they needed to get Loki back in order to get things back on track. What was his problem?

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to the beach out on seventy-six, I hear it's nice out there," she said sarcastically. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm taking back what's mine." her voice was serious this time as she yanked her arm out of his grasp. She didn't particularly like being handled any sort of way.

"We need a plan of attack," Steve said, trying to convince her not to be so brash about this.

"I have a plan: attack."

With that Toni was gone leaving behind a sorely annoyed Steve. It was abundantly clear that didn't work well with anyone; she was an irritating lone wolf.

 **Author's Note: Review Please.**


	3. Pointless Fighting

**AnonMetro: Aw thanks, I'll try to keep it up.**

 **Chapter Three: Pointless Fighting**

"Why couldn't you wait?" Steve grumbled to himself.

What was she thinking? Going out there by herself when there were possibly two powerful enemies? Sure, she was powerful with that suit on, but still one against two wasn't optimal when it came to Norse God. _Especially_ for a lady, according to Rogers. So he gathered up his shield and a parachute to go. Toni didn't get to be arrogant and screw everything up just because she thought herself so powerful and smart.

"I wouldn't follow in Stark's footsteps," Natasha said. "These guys come from legend; they're basically gods."

He answered as honestly as any red-blooded American would, "There's only one God, ma'am, and I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that."

With that said he jumped out of the plane with his body tightly clenched together like a plank of wood in order to gain optimal speed. He was going to talk some serious sense into Iron Maiden and get her to be sensible and less of a show off. Come on, arrogance had to be one of the most annoying traits he's ever come across. Where did the humbleness of the world go? It's generally accepted and well received now to be an arrogant show off with lots of money to just toss around according to the media, well, as long as you make charitable donations once in a while that is.

He shook his head. He needed to focus on getting her and the situation under control.

 **X**

Iron Maiden saw her target, the big muscular blonde man that bellowed and stomped around with that hammer of his. She swooped in with a smirk and rammed him right into the side. He went flying across the forest, taking out several trees in his wake as his face smashed into the ground, probably scraping those Nordic features of his.

"Did I interrupt your little play?" she said with false sympathy. "Doth Sister know you weareth her hair?"

"Allow me to have Loki and he shall face Asgardian punishment," he said, gesturing to his brother as he stood from the broken tree.

"Once he gives up the cube he's all yours until then piss off," she told him.

He said to her, thinking that would get her to back down, "I am not afraid to hit a woman."

"That's fine," she smirked. "Neither am I."

Well, that was about the biggest insult to a Norse God there was, being called a woman. Their ideals were clearly old and dated, but nonetheless they stuck.

He was done with her, his temper broke like that unfortunate last stick on a camel's back. In a fit of rage, Thor threw his hammer at Iron Maiden. It hit her right in the chest. And of course, she flew backwards until a tree broke her fall and well broke the tree too. Immediately, on the screen it bleeped and showed where her armor was damaged. She ignored this, already understanding where and why it was in the state that it was in.

She scowled heavily at him as his hammer went back into his big meaty hand. That was unfair. She was usually the one to blast first and ask questions never.

"Okay. So you wanna play like that, huh?" she said more to herself than anyone. "That's fine, I can play rough too."

She got up rather unsteadily. Then took off into the air via her feet stabilizers. She wasn't using her hand flight stabilizers, they were busy continuously firing at him with her blasters. He took these hits and flew backwards, breaking yet another tree. But that didn't deter him. No, when Toni landed all she could do was watch in confusion as lightning erupted from the sky and was absorbed into his hammer.

She gasped in surprise and winced as said lightning suddenly zapped her right into her armor. She closed her eyes and instinctively tried to block her face from bright blue electricity. Even though she was protected by her armor she still expected to be somehow really hurt from a bolt of lightning hitting her like that. But no, it didn't. In fact, after the continuous stream of electricity was poured into her it actually, well, helped her.

"Power at 400% capacity," Jarvis informed her.

She smirked egotistically with a quick lift of her eyebrows when Thor began to rush at her. As he reached her he suddenly stopped, body slumped over her, narrower in comparison, shoulder. Toni looked over at him, smirk ever present. Then he coughed up blood, so she removed her knee from his gut and he began to fall forward in shock at the nasty turn of events. But a finger caught him right on the top of his chin and pushed him back up to his original standing position.

Without a moment of hesitation she blasted him in the face.

Thor went flying into the mountainside, actually making a huge dent and getting stuck in there for a moment. Then he pulled out, face not scratched, but full of dirt and rubble and anger. But Iron Maiden wasn't intimidated one bit. She braced herself and waited for him to come at her. And boy did he ever.

He surged forward, aiming to punch her in the face and smash in the metal there. But she caught it with relative ease because of that unintentional power boost. He attempted to punch her again with his other hand, but she caught that one too with her free hand. Then she lifted her knee up to smash it into his stomach to which he coughed loudly in pain from the blow.

But it seemed to only make the blonde angrier, so he clutched her the armor beneath his fingers. She gasped in annoyance and then in pain when he squeezed down to her actual fist. She ignored the beeps and blasted him in the face again. Out of reflex he pulled back and she took the opportunity to head butt him. It did little to no damage, so Thor did the same to Iron Maiden.

She flipped backwards, landing awkwardly back on her hands and feet.

A sizable dent was made on her helmet, but she kept at it. She used her flight stabilizers to propel her forwards to punch him in the head. He punched her back before grabbing her shoulders and slamming her to the ground. The breath was knocked out of her from the hard slam and when she saw him summon his hammer into his hand she knew she needed to get gone. She surged forward from the gas blasting from her hands and feet to knock him off his feet and get out from under him.

It worked.

She was got up and was about to take him out from behind and end this quickly. But she stopped right then and there when a red white and blue shield whacked Thor and then Iron Maiden in the head. She scoffed and looked over to see what in the hell was going on. She saw it was none other than Roger, the man with the plan and the biggest most righteous pain in the ass ever. She scowled at him even if he couldn't see her behind her armor.

"Hey! That's enough!" Steve shouted, shield in hand once more. "Now, I don't know what you think you're doing here," he said, facing Thor, "but if you're here to help you and Stark need to stop fighting."

"Tell that Woman of Metal," he said furiously gesturing to her, "to keep her place and allow me to take Loki home to Asgard!"

"'Keep her in her place?!'" she scoffed, rolling her eyes in pure annoyance. "Well, then you don't know me one bit. It looks you're gonna have to kiss my ass, you son of a—"

Toni began, but she caught the look on Steve's face. It was absolute distaste and incredulity mixed with a tinge of anger. His eyes were bulging out and his lips were pulled into a tight thin line. Well, that wasn't a pleasant look. She figured she better change tactics so both Thor and Captain America on her ass for cursing like that.

"— nothing," she finished, trying to look and sound as innocent as she could.

Steve turned his attention back to Thor. "If you're on our side prove it. Put that hammer down," he said.

"Uh, no offense, Capsicle," she said, putting her hands up as a sign of warning. "I think he likes his hamm— ARGH!"

Said hammer hit her right across the chest and sent her flying backwards and shut her up effectively.

"YOU WANT ME TO PUT THE HAMMER DOWN?!"

In a burst of white hot anger Thor leapt forward with his hammer outstretched and ready to damage. And the two heroes ducked and covered: Toni's hands over her head in a crouch and Steve with his shield held above him in protection. And, of course, the shield and the hammer clashed, sending out a shockwave that knocked all the trees down and the three heroes to the ground. And that loud high sound that it let out was one for the records.

They slowly recovered from that. All the fight was drained out of them from that little move. They pulled bark, rubble, and all kinds of foliage from them as they slowly got back on their feet. That escalated pretty quickly and ended pretty quickly too.

"I don't know about you boys," she said with a soft cough and roll of her stiff shoulder, "but I think I'm done here."

She looked around for the general consensus and, well, they all seemed to agree on this.

"Alright, now that you've got your rocks off let's get down to the nitty gritty," she said. "One of you bag Loki. I got repairs to do and ships to get to."

Well, that was a huge waste of time in her opinion. But then again she let out some general aggression that Mr. Stars And Stripes was pretty much a hottie and a sweetie. Yet, he was still a Grade A Dumbass with such righteous morals that he made anyone less than so, like herself, feel downright unholy. And she hated that feeling of inadequacy and inferiority and whenever he spewed that innocent naïve crap about bettering the world or some crap like that it made her feel like that every time he was around.

And she hated it.

With a passion.

 **Author's Note: Please review.**


	4. Oh Boy

**AnonMetro: I try my best to keep it descriptive without being overly, so that the reader won't get bored. It's kind of hard to find that balance, but I'm glad I found it for you. Anyway, thanks for reviewing again. I really appreciate it.**

 **Chapter Four: Oh Boy**

They just heard Loki's big speech on power plays and that they'll crush them in a skinny minute. And well, of course, Fury wasn't going to take any of that and quipped at him sarcastically and Toni couldn't help but idly wonder if he picked up any of her other mannerisms. Since, well, she wasn't exactly the sweetest of ladies when it came to her perceived enemy.

She looked up and

"Does anybody else feel that?" she asked.

The people — Steve, Natasha, and Thor — sitting at the circular table in the main conference room looked up at her.

"What?" Steve asked.

"The cold draft of paralyzing boredom?" she sighed, putting her cheek in her hand with a smirk.

They looked at her, unimpressed. None of them were particularly amused by her antics, but then again they never really were even if she found herself pretty funny.

"I mean, why are we waiting around and not, you know, torturing him to get the information? Sounds like a solid plan, right?"

"Have care how you speak!" Thor immediately shouted at her. She looked over at him, unimpressed and slightly amused. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard and he is my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha deadpanned.

"He's adopted," he lamented.

That's when Nick Fury entered the room swag and big attitude present. It was clear he didn't give a damn about Thor and Loki's relations, brother or not didn't matter to him in the slightest.

"I don't care if he's cousin three times removed, what I want to know is how he got two of the most sharpest men I know to be his personal flying monkeys," he said.

"Flying monkeys?" the Thunder God looked incredibly confused.

"Ha!" Steve said, looking happy, then when everyone looked at him like he took his crazy pills extra strength this morning he deflated pretty quickly. "I… I actually understood that reference." he explained dejectedly.

With an over dramatic eye roll Toni decided to tease this guy further than she already had during their precious twenty-four hours together. It wasn't like the blonde was leaving her much of a choice considering how easy it was to crack a few jokes at him and make his face redder than a tomato.

"Good for you, Spangles, do you want a cookie?" she asked with overwhelming sarcasm and such a falsely sweet smile directed right at him.

This time Natasha's lips quirked in amusement, Thor chortled softly, and Steve's face flushed immediately whether it be from embarrassment or anger he didn't know. Well, at least she got something out of them even though she worried that soldier boy might have had just about enough of her.

"Toni, sometimes you are the most—"

"— rude, annoying, insufferable, arrogant, know-it-all. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all and trust me, sweetheart, I've been called worse," she smirked, seeing his face redden even further, going all the way to his neck at this point. She turned to leave the circular table they were all sitting at and just end this conversation right there, but during mid-swivel her eyes caught a glimpse of someone she read about rather recently coming this way. "Oh boy," she whispered under her breath.

"What?" Steve said, a little exasperated by this sudden mood shift.

She felt excitement deep in her gut at the new interesting person walking in to join everyone. He was generally what she pictured him to be. He had that shy yet studious aura about him that made him seem like he was holding back or hiding something. Clearly brilliant, but lacked the confidence to show it off and be all that he could be. Which in turn fascinated and drew the billionaire in.

"It's Dr. Banner," she said.

Everyone who knew of his, well, alter ego tensed in fear of the generally peaceful scientist. With the exception of Toni, of course, she tensed from the excitement. So, with this setting in mind, Bruce sat down and knew he would have to break the awkward silence and greeting the one person that wasn't fearful of him sounded like a good start.

"Stark," he said.

"Banner," she said in the same tone as him except mockingly so.

It eased some of the tension, thankfully. If there was one thing Toni did well it when it came to people it was her ability to defuse a tense situation or solemn mood with jokes or inappropriate sexual innuendos. It was a talent rarely appreciated.

"Iridium," Bruce said, getting to the point. "What does Loki need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent," Toni supplied easily, she stood from her seated spot, walking around to stretch the legs. "It's so the portal doesn't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D."

She turned to Maria and Coulson, a smirk on her lips, clear warning that she was about to tease and mock.

"By the way, great job guys. Top notch work," she said sarcastically. "Nobel prizes and slow claps for all of you."

That earned an eye roll from Maria and a look of disdain from Coulson. This attitude wasn't anything new, but that didn't mean it was appreciated. After all, Toni Stark will always have that certain degree of super special assholeness to her.

"Also, that means the portal will stay open as long as Loki wants," she said.

She walked over to the head of the ship, placing her hands on the console, pretending to be in Fury's place and as if she owned the joint. She looked around at the ship as a whole and its crew and picked out something she thought everyone ought to know.

"That man is playing Galaga!" she exclaimed. "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." she placed a hand over one of her eyes and joked. "Guess who I am?" she cleared her throat and said. "Hey, real power give me the Tesseract back or you'll be free falling faster than you can say 'oh it hurts, please don't hit me with my own rib bones.'"

Everyone eyed her wearily (including Fury), clearly disturbed and put off that she'd say that, but then again it was Stark. So what do you expect?

"You can laugh," she said to her silent audience, "because it was funny."

She was still met with silence, a few eye rolls, and people clearing their throat. None of them looked her in the eye since it was so awkward at this particular moment. Perfect. She stuck her own little hacking implant in Fury's computer without anyone noticing.

"I think the word everyone is looking for is: anyway," she said with a mild shrug. "Anyway, all the other materials Agent Barton can get his hands rather easily. All he needs now is a decent power source, you know, something to kick start the cube."

"When did you become so well versed in Thermonuclear Astrophysics?" Maria asked, waves of judgement and disdain was directed at her.

"Last night," she smirked at her. "You know with the homework, notes, theory papers by Selvig," she said. She got blank expressions from everyone. "Are you kidding me?" she asked rather incredulously. "Am I the only one who did the reading?"

Well, that was apparent. Then again she just assumed that everyone here was so stupid that they wouldn't know the difference between ion fusion and atomic fusion. Sometimes it really was a killer to be incredibly smart; it was annoying to dumb herself down so that people will understand her. Not to mention tiring. Did anyone understand her?

"Well, if he's going to do that he'd have to heat cube at a hundred twenty million kelvin just to break through the Coulomb Barrier," he said, standing.

It seemed Bruce certainly understood her which was appreciated very much so.

"Um, not if Selvig perfected the quantum tunneling effect," she shot back.

"Well, if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."

Her expression lit up like a thousand stars. "Finally, somebody who speaks English," she said, genuinely smiling.

"Is that what just happened?"

She resisted rolling her eyes. She was far too elated with the fact that she was conversing with the renowned Dr. Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk. She wasn't going to let Steve's obvious stupidity get in the way of that.

"Nice talking to you Bruce," she said, shaking his hand. "You're work is simply unparalleled and I'm such a fangirl of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." her perky smile was in stark contrast to the sensitive topic she brought up.

"Uh, thanks," he said, looking down and flushing a bit in uncomfortableness and embarrassment.

Fury cleared his throat, getting everyone's attention.

"Dr. Banner is only here to help locate the cube," he said. "I was hoping you'd help him out… Fangirl."

She rolled her eyes, but nonetheless agreed to it with a nod and a wink at Bruce. Immediately, the man pretended not to notice by removing his glasses and cleaning it with his shirt. It seemed the doctor was quite shy and therefore made her want to tease him with innocuous flirtations and coy smiles. She just didn't understand why he didn't just walk around with overwhelming confidence, considering when he walked into a room all eyes were on him — even if it was for all the wrong reasons. Still. Attention was attention and he should own up to it.

Steve cleared his throat trying to regain Bruce and Toni's attention. "That stick may be magic, but it works an awful lot like a HYDRA weapon."

"Bored now," she sighed. "Come on, Bruce, let's go find a out power cube."

She grasped Bruce's arm and pretty much dragged him over across the hall and towards the labs and computers where they could research and 'find where the Tesseract is.' Like hell she was actually do what she was told. Come on, that'd be just ridiculous. Like she was a team player. Pff.

That's when everyone pretty much followed Toni and Bruce's example by exiting the conference room. No longer did they find this meeting important and gave the proverbial finger to Steve's comment.

Said blonde ran a hand down his face with a long sigh. This world was so rude and smart. Even people who were excellent fighters were incredibly smart in some field like Toni and Bruce. And well, he wasn't. Okay, to be fair he wasn't a totally dumbass, but he certainly anywhere near those two's levels of genius. And that clearly gained the respect and the lack of teasing from the dark haired woman. After all, her attitude was really grating on his nerves.

Honestly, what did he do to her? He was polite and she came at him with such sharp words and subtle meanness that would seem like innocent teasing but he could feel the venom in them. He couldn't help the deep annoyance and the very quickly rising he felt in his chest whenever she said something particularly rude. He wouldn't retaliate, he refused to sink to her level, and further the issue, but every man has his limits and, well, he might do something drastic if she pushed him too far.

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	5. Out of a Bottle

**AnonMetro: I think everyone has their limits when it comes to Toni. Especially Steve, I would imagine, considering she kind of 'hates' him right now. And yes, the sexual tension will most likely happen soon, but there's gonna be a scene where there's a complete attitude flip for one of them and that character's feelings just drastically for the other.**

 **Chapter Five: Out of a Bottle**

"Weird being on this ship especially when you have no idea if Fury's gonna screw you over or not," Toni said, glancing up at Bruce from her computer.

"Yeah, the last time I was in New York I… broke Harlem," he admitted reluctantly.

Toni frowned at him for a moment. Bruce looked as if he was confessing to a Catholic priest that he just murdered a small child and liked it. For crying out loud, he couldn't help what happened when he turned into the Hulk and he should stop stressing over it so much. He did so much good for the world and she assumed that was his form of penance. But there's a point when you have to stop punishing yourself and essentially get over it and move on with your life.

"Well," she smiled playfully, looking over at him, "then I pity the fool who goes up against you, big guy. Can't wait to see you suit up."

"Oh, well you see, I don't get a suit of armor I can take off and call it a night. This, The Other Guy, is always inside me and will always be there as a constant reminder of how easy it is to hurt someone and lose control," Bruce said, looking rather choked up.

Toni could kind of relate to that. She had a constant reminder that she's the Iron Maiden and the Iron Maiden is her. "Same. You see this little circle of light?" she pointed to the hunk of metal at the center of her chest. "It's apart of me. It keeps a bunch shrapnel from stabbing me in the heart and killing me," she said. "You know, relatable stuff."

"Yes, but you can control it," he said, looking at with an ironic smile on his face.

She smiled at him. True, she can control what's happening to her. But she still felt pretty connected to him, kind of like kindred spirits in someway. Neither of them particularly asked for this and they embraced it for it is. Well, Toni full heartedly embraced it with her flashy entrances and bragging and what not, but Bruce on the other hand was so cautious and clenched that it just looked so unfun.

"Well, I promise a stress free environment," she said circling him and brushing a hand across his back as she did so since they were in such a confined space. That and she enjoyed seeing him squirm when she would flirt a little; it was kind of cute. "No tension, no surprises." she smirked as she appeared on his left. In an instant she poked him hard with a zap of electricity from electronic pen.

"Ow!" he screeched, clutching his side.

She leant in closer for inspection of his facial features. She only saw a sign of pain, but zero annoyance or anger and most importantly no green. Well, that was disappointing. She wanted him to at least to see a little bit of his Jolly Green Giant side and not be so clenched all the time.

"Nothing," she sighed in disappointment, shoulders sagging.

"Hey! Are you nuts?!"

She looked over and saw Mr. Stars And Stripes himself still all decked out in his spandex uniform. Well, judging by the tone and the look on his face she managed to piss off one person. Honestly, she just couldn't get enough of pestering him. He was like a little wind-up toy you watch go.

"You think this is funny?!"

"Well, funny things are and I'm funny, so yeah," she smirked at him like far more angelic than she should in this expression.

He glared at the short woman with an ego the size of Mount Rushmore. It was quite irritating. All of her insults, her mean humor, and eye rolls were directed solely at him and Steve Rogers may be a patient guy, but he wasn't perfect. One of these days if she just didn't shut and stop challenging hin at every turn he was gonna—

He took a deep and relaxing breath before letting that train of thought go any further. There was no need to add to the drama she readily supplied when it came to him. He just needed to stay calm and focused and he'd be fine… he hoped.

Bruce, sensing the tension in the room, decided to ease it with the thing that caused it. "Don't worry, if little things like that caused The Other Guy to make an appearance I wouldn't be aboard."

Toni looked to Bruce and told him straight up, "You're tip-toeing big guy, you need to strut." she smirked whilst picking up a bag of chips.

"And you need to focus on the problem Ms. Stark," Steve said.

She turned to Bruce and said between fits of laughter, "He calls me Ms. Stark. Ain't that cute as hell?"

The scientist snorted in amusement as the dark haired woman continued to laugh profusely between bites of her chips. From the corner of her eyes she saw blue ones avert. Not to mention his cheeks lit up like fireworks from embarrassment most likely. She just loved to see that blush he since he looked like a blonde strawberry ready to burst. She wondered idly how a sexy muscled man could look so adorable and school boyish simultaneously. She shook her head to rid herself of that intrusive thought; no need to sexually objectify the guy she hates… right? Right.

"Alright, alright," she lamented, putting her hands up in apology. "In all seriousness, wonder-bread, do you honestly think that Fury wants peace on Earth yadayada and all that bullshit?" she asked, eyeing him.

"Well, yeah, don't you?" he asked curiously.

"Not for a damn minute," she said as she took a bite out of her chip. She looked to Bruce and asked, "Don't you think so, Bruce?"

He looked surprised when blue and brown eyes were trained on him. He gestured to himself curiously if she really wanted him to tell them what he thought. He received a nod and a smirk which honestly made him look to Stece instead since he was unused to that kind of attention.

"Doctor?" the blonde asked, wishing for his opinion as he did his best to ignore Toni flirting with Bruce.

"Well, it does seem a little suspicious," he said removing his glasses to clean them. "What is S.H.I.E.L.D. even doing in the energy business in the first place? It seems rather random considering their usual MO."

She smirked, "Since I'm the only person with a fully functioning clean energy tower—"

"Stark Tower?" Steve asked, interrupting her and her self-indulging little speech. "You mean that big ugly piece of—"

Dangerous brown eyes flicked over at him as a warning sign to say: 'if you say another word I'll tear out your liver.' Icy blue eyes looked down at her, not wanting to let up on the silent yet obvious challenge between them. Neither one of them were going to back down on this — what with Toni's stubbornness and Steve's refusal to lose. It seemed their relationship was just getting worse and worse with time, tension between them ratcheting up every time they fought like this.

"Anyway," Bruce said, leaning forward to try and regain their attention. "We have no idea what they're up to and this could be a huge problem later on down the road."

Toni sighed and wiped a hand down her face in order to break that piercing gaze of Steve's before facing Bruce. "No worries there, big guy. I'm hacking S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database for all she's worth and I'll know every dirty little secret S.H.I.E.L.D. whispers to her best friends," she said playfully.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s a girl now?" Bruce looked mildly amused.

"Well, yeah, she's subtle and gets shit done. Sounds like a pretty productive female to me," Toni laughed to herself shortly.

Well, Steve would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little peeved at how easily those two got along. He didn't particularly have any issues with Bruce, they got along, and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. No, it was the fact that Toni could just as easily get along with him since he figured he was a fairly nice guy as well, but of course the billionaire choose not to and constantly fought with him. What was her deal? Was there some little memo he wasn't informed on that made him hated and Bruce adored?

"You need to focus on the problem, Stark," he said, breaking up their little giggle fest.

Her laughter stopped in its tracks and wasn't amused at all by the interruption. "I'm sorry," she said sarcastically, looking at him with annoyed brown eyes, "out of all the people in the room who's A in tights and spangles and B as useless as a sack of broken bricks?"

He held her fiery gaze before looking away rather briefly. Talk about hitting where it hurt. He was, indeed, feeling rather useless in this situation. When he was supposed to take down Loki, enemy number one, Toni had to come in and save him. Then when it came to locating and figuring out how the Tessract worked he was no help there and again Toni came in and solved the problem. Yeah, he was feeling real useless compared to her right now and her of all people rubbing it in didn't really help. At all.

He looked back up with icy blue eyes and said rather gruffly, "Just find the cube." With that he exited the room, planning to prove her wrong and be useful to the cause.

"I think you really hurt his feelings," Bruce supplied, looking at her sincerely.

She felt a small twist of guilt, but dismissed it entirely. Why should she feel guilty? Just his holier than thou presence was a sin to her, so when she knocked him down a few pegs and made him leave the room why shouldn't she be rejoicing? It wasn't as if Steve just wanted to do good and she was being difficult… right?

"Damn this big heart of mine," she sighed irritably, hamming it up to amuse. "I guess I'll be the bigger person and, you know, make _amends_." With that said she sighed dramatically again and walked out of the room, tablet in hand.

Bruce shook his head in amusement at her ways of relieving tension she essentially causes. She may be an egotistical mess, but at least she had a sense of humor and didn't treat him like an ticking alien time bomb. He could appreciate that. A lot. So yeah, despite her flaws she was growing on him and honestly… he wished she wasn't. Even if he was like any other human being that craved friendship and comfort especially from the opposite sex that was, albeit, rather attractive, it wasn't like he was just any other guy. He was dangerous. Any time he was far too pissed or just simply lost control that would be the end of his friend.

But of course, Toni Stark was persistent and wouldn't allow him to wallow or distance himself from her because she was probably the most stubborn person he knew.

Meanwhile, Toni walked around calling out Steve's name to try and find him. She wanted to make this quick and go back to hanging out with Bruce and finding out all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s dirty secrets. But when she says she's do something she usually did it, so here she was looking for good old Mr. Rogers.

"Rogers!" she called. "Oh!" she grunted in surprise.

They really should have mirrors for these sharp corners, so that people wouldn't run into each other or give them heat attacks. But when she recovered from her mild shock she took a step back realizing how close that muscled chest was to her face. After blinking slowly to clear her head of very naughty thoughts she finally noticed what was in his hand. It was a pretty little piece of weaponry that didn't look very familiar.

"Stark," he began, "what are you—"

"Did S.H.I.E.L.D. make that?" she questioned, cutting right through words.

"Yeah, I guess I'm not so useless after all," he said, no smirk of malice on his face since that wasn't really in his character. But he did smile a little since he was proud of himself.

"Way to go, Rogers," she said, every word dripping in sarcasm. "Now, we know that S.H.I.E.L.D. has a backstage pass to kill us all in our sleep. 'Peace for all mankind to share' my ass! More like 'I'm gonna rule the globe, idiots!'"

She snatched the weapon from his hands, trying to figure out how it worked. She figured that this is why the Tesseract was such a big deal to find: to power up these HYDRA style weapons. Wonderful. Just wonderful.

"Do you really think they're gonna kill us?" he asked. "That seems unlikely."

"Well, what do you expect?" she said, obviously annoyed that he didn't suspect the same from them. Clearly, he expected the very best from everyone until they proved him otherwise. It seemed he really didn't see the issue even when death machines were right in front of him. "I've dealt with these people before and it's not like they'll tell you who they want to kill. It's just like, boom assassin, and that's about it. But now they've got a," she inspected a little closer at the, "rocket launcher. A freaking rocket launcher!"

"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid," Steve said.

"Well, how else am I going to get through to that thick head of yours?"

His lips were drawn in a tight thin line, body stiff as if trying to hold himself back from doing something physical. He was so pissed off with her. It was snide comment after snide comment directed at him and only him. What did he ever do to her? He'd been nice to her upon their general meeting, treated her politely and called her Ms. Stark and everything. He was certain he didn't bring about this antagonistic relationship. So what the hell was her problem?

Cold angry baby blue eyes continued to glare daggers at the woman he was towering over.

"Oh Rogers, not for nothing, but the last time somebody looked at me like that…," she placed the pad on the table and looked back up to tease, "I got laid."

Immediately, his face heated up in both embarrassment and anger, turning his cheeks rosy pink. Sex, especially when referring to him, and compliments having to do with his good looks in any way made him so uncomfortable. People just didn't blurt things like that out loud in public in the 1940's, they didn't have that kind of language on the radio, TV, or the Internet — well, let's be honest they didn't even _have_ the Internet at that time and TV was only beginning to appear in households. Plus, the only people who talked like that back then were sailors and they were only men, not women. So it really just baffled the poor old fashioned man that she would say it at all or any of the crap to him.

Toni, on the other hand, couldn't fight the smirk threatening to curl on her lips. She got Rogers, the biggest stuck up tight ass with no sense of fun, to blush like a little schoolboy and avoid her eyes like the plague. This was especially good since they were just arguing. She considered it a victory and was pretty proud of it. If the topic of sex was his only weakness in a verbal confrontation hell yeah she'd use it against him.

"You know, I'm starting to get real tired of that attitude. But you know what? Without that suit of yours you couldn't back any of that up. So without it, what are you?" he said, getting close to her, and likewise a deep glare set on her face for a brief moment.

"A billionaire playgirl philanthropist," she smirked.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," he said, blue gaze narrowing at the volatile woman. "You're not the person to make the sacrifice play: to lay down on the wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire," she retorted, smirk still present.

Always the jokes to mask the actual deep rooted anger that was beginning to boil and fester under her skin. Like hell she'd give him the satisfaction of seeing her snap and lose her shit before he did. And who gave him the right to judge her when he knew her for what… two days. He didn't know her and he certainly didn't know what she was capable of.

"Always a way out," he said bitingly. "You better stop pretending to be a hero."

Now, she was fucking out right pissed off, about to breathe fire like a dragon and burn him to death.

"What like _you_? Everything special about you, Rogers, came out of a bottle," she said, her eyes were quite malicious and angry, burning hot into his cold blue stare. He didn't know what she's sacrificed in her life to keep certain loved ones alive, so honestly he had no room to talk. None.

"Put on the suit, let's go a few rounds," he said.

"Why?" she further antagonized, ready to bite his head off like an animal cracker. "Can't hit a woman unless her face is shielded?"

"So you can stand a chance," he said tensely.

They were mere inches apart now. Their bodies were almost touching, breathes mingling, able to see every angry detail of each other's faces as they glared each other down. Their breathing was elevated from the intensity of the argument and the proximity. Eyes were unwavering as tensions began escalating, rising with each second that passed and making the air between them hot, thick, and heavy. It's almost as if the raw tension between them was tangible like electricity that would zap the second the both of them came into contact.

And it did. They did come into contact rather quickly and sporadically, almost violently. Hands grasped her cheeks and pulled her into an unexpected kiss. Lips worked against hers, molding them against his own rather clumsily but with purpose. His hand slipped into her hair and pretty much pulled her up close and personal with his other large warm hand at the center of her back.

Toni's eyes were wide, lips unmoving as his continued to move sensually against hers.

With a soft grunt and a hard shove to the chest she pushed away from him in complete and absolute shock. Her hand covered her mouth in astonishment as she stared at Steve… Steve Rogers. Captain fucking America had kissed her with such weirdly explosive passion and clumsiness of a virgin right in the middle of an argument. _Why_? Why did he kiss her like that? Why did he kiss her _at all_? Sure the tension, the arguing, and his obvious attractiveness sometimes made her think of some real raunchy things best left unspoken.

Her eyes roamed up and down his form. He was panting hard for breath causing those rippling muscles to pull tight against that uniform every time he inhaled, his high cheekbones were flushed, and his blue blue eyes were a little unfocused. Honestly, sex appeal alone she'd lick him all over. She bit her bottom lip, you know, the lips that were still tingling from the aftermath of that lip lock. She was wrestling with the fact that this was Rogers her sworn rival, and the guy that upstaged her childhood, but he was also, Rogers the sexy blonde muscle man that just kissed her and had her pressed against all those delicious muscles. Maybe just maybe….

She slowly removed her hand from her mouth and found herself moving towards him. Her eyes continued to roam, taking in the tightness of the uniform, and the fact that this was indeed, Captain America, the guy her dad told her to look up to and admire. Clearly, her dad didn't mean to kiss and possibly fuck the man clad in red, white, and blue. That forbiddenness was kind of a turn on. Okay, major turn on actually. She smirked, thinking, _oh fuck it all_ ,before reaching for his neck to smash his lips to hers.

When their lips collided she was brutal, aggressive, and didn't let up one bit. The raw and unforgiving way her lips attacked his was relieving all the hate, jealousy, and pent up rage she had for this man and the respect her dad had for him that he didn't have for her. And honestly, when she heard the noise of surprise and pain she didn't care. She ignored it and her nails just sunk into his scalp and kissed him harder, wanting him to shut his pie hole and let her punish his mouth. It was all lips and teeth. She was about to roughly tear past those little perfect pink lips when…

 _BOOM!_

The entire ship shook with the severity of the explosion. Toni broke away from his lips and let go of his hair with a groan of annoyance. But that was when she pretty much realized what she was doing and pushed his panting, blushing face away by his chest. Honestly, she was pretty much just attacking him with her mouth all over Steve fucking Rogers mouth.

"Put on the suit," he said.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, scrambling to get to her suit.

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	6. Not One to Date

**AnonMetro: Yes, yes, that was unexpected. I don't think even Steve, the kisser, expected himself to do that which makes it all the more funny.**

 **Chapter Six: Not One to Date**

Toni Stark loved awkwardness. The facial expression and the way people acted was incredibly funny to her. But when things were awkward between her and the guy she needed to partner up with was incredibly inconvenient. She decided to ignore it like anything else that was unpleasant or actually kind of pleasant but with the completely wrong person.

She put it out of her mind for the moment and began blowing away the debris and explosion fodder as her partner for the time being was trying his hardest to keep up with her. But she was trying her hardest to stay away from him and ignore him otherwise she'd be far too distracted by the fact that she wanted more than anything than to tap that ass she was pretty sure was so tight she could bounce a nickel off it. That and she didn't really want to talk about what happened about twenty minutes ago.

"Aw crap," she said to herself, "Rogers!" she called. "I need you!"

He ran over to her and asked, "You bellowed?"

Immediately, she saw the teeth marks all over his lips, the cut there, and how swollen those lips were all because of her. Not to mention the angry half-moon marks all over the back and sides of his neck. She couldn't explain how much of a turn on that was, but it was. She tore apart at Steve fucking Rogers so easily with just her lips and nails.

"Yeah, I need you to stand by that circuit breaker and tell me what it looks like," she said, wanting the walking sex that's pretty much Steve Rogers out of her sight right now so she wouldn't do something stupid.

She continued to slice and dice off explosion aftermath. She knew unless their ambushers took out another engine then they'd stay afloat, but considering the explosions she's been hearing made that very unlikely she could rely on that other engine.

"Uh," Steve said, looking at the panel confusedly. He had no idea what any of it meant, he wasn't an expert in machinery. "It seems to work on some form of electricity."

So dumb, but so pretty. Why did she always get landed with those types of guys either in bed or at critical times like these? Was that the price of being incredibly smart… and constantly having one night stands? Seemed so.

"Well, you're not wrong, hon," she said as if she was speaking to someone younger than her by several years. Then she pretty much began thinking out loud. "Alright, the whole circuit board has been flipped from the giant explosion and electricity. That means it's gone into mealy and needs a system reset in order for—"

"Speak English!" Steve said.

This little woman just kept making him feel stupider and stupider with her expansive knowledge and terminology when it came to mechanics. She was brilliant yet insufferable. It frustrates him that someone like her could do all of this and treated him so poorly. Since he wouldn't really mind locking lips with her if she was a little more gen—

He shook his head. Now, wasn't the time to think about his first kiss in the last seventy years made his lips throb, swell, and most likely bruise.

He heard Toni scoff on the other end of the ear piece. "You see that red lever? I need you to flip it when I tell you to. Can you handle that, hot shot?"

"Yeah, Toni, I think I can handle that," he sighed in annoyance.

"Good, 'cause I need to get in there and push."

His eyes widened in surprise. Wouldn't she be crushed and sliced up by the fast spinning blades of the engine? Before he knew what he was even doing he shouted:

"Wait!"

She actually physically stopped in the middle of what she was doing. She was surprised and quite frankly rather thrown off by the level of concern in his voice. Why did he care? He said some pretty harsh things to her and she said some pretty nasty things back. So why did he care and why should she care that he cares?

"What?"

"Won't you get crushed by the blades?"

"Come on now," she said, shaking off that weird feeling, "I'll be fine… as long as you pull the lever, Kronk."

She laughed at her own reference to one of her favorite animated movies since she actually genuinely entertained especially for a kid's movie. So when alluding to it she expected to at least get a little bit of a chuckle considering that's one of its most famous lines.

"Kronk?" he said in absolute confusion.

Oh right, this was capsicle after all. Man out of time and not really caught up in this time is kind of his thing. So references from the latter half of the twentieth century and all of the twenty first century so far was pretty much impossible to make and him to understand. It must suck to suck is pretty much Toni's thought line on that subject.

She sighed. "You know, Steve, one of these days we need to have a movie marathon to catch you up to speed on all my reference 'cause I'm getting real tired of laughing by myself at my brilliant jokes," she said.

She situated herself in front of the engine's blade and started to push to try and pretty jump start it.

"Alright, get out alive and we'll see," he said.

She shook her head amusedly and then began to push. She used the flight stabilizers behind her at full strength to try and get this engine going. When it started to pick up in speed and get going it was pretty much during the worst time ever for that to occur.

Because suddenly, some of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s men that were under Barton's orders burst through to the engineering room's spot Steve was directed to stay at in order for Toni not to get crushed when the engine got up to speed. He definitely had to move when a live grenade was thrown at him, hopping to his left.

"Ugh!" he grunted when he landed painfully across the other of the platform. Well, it was better than falling down the broken ship and dying before he even hit the ocean down below.

Shots fired at him and he dodged swiftly. He needed to get back to that red lever and do what little he can to help Toni. It may not seem like much, but if it was going to help her from getting crushed he'd do it. He seemed to have a handle on things, progressing back towards the circuit board and simultaneously avoid killing the man shooting at him. Thing were going well.

But, of course, things went horribly wrong when they started going well: there was another jolt of the ship as it endured another explosion. It caused Steve and his opponent to thrash all around causing both of them to lose their proper footing. Both fell down and off the ship.

Unfortunately, the soldier wasn't built with the super soldier's reflexes, so he wasn't able to grab the long black cord like Steve did. And as it was he only just barely got a grasp on it, heart pumping with adrenaline from the fear of falling and dying like that poor man below him.

"Yo, Cap, I'm gonna need you to pull that lever," he heard Toni tell him through the earpiece.

"I'm kind of busy here!" he said breathlessly.

"Lever. _Now_ ," she said.

The genius was becoming more and more worried and anxious as the engine kept accelerating at an alarming rate. She began hyperventilating when her hands left the blade beyond her control. She was going to be crushed because her partner she was forced to rely on had one job. One job! And he failed.

"WRONG LEVER!" she screeched, still making jokes when her life was on the line.

Then she was tossed and thrown all about the engine's many blades. The armor was barely keeping her safe from being totally cut up and annihilated, but she didn't know how long that would last. Not to mention, it wasn't as if this was the perfect form of protection; she hissed in pain when the suit dented against her arm and then the next dent got her in the face.

"Urah!" Steve grunted when he was finally able to pull that red lever down and give Toni the opportunity to free herself.

The brunette gasped when the constant banging and thrashing let up. She steadied herself via flight stabilizers. She was in a bit of shock at the fact that the constant barrage suddenly stopped. But she didn't wait and got the hell out of there.

She landed with a stuttering stop, landing pretty painfully. Her legs tripped up and she landed on her knees. She was fighting for breath as she shakily removed her suit. Her body was sore and aching dully. She was lucky she didn't die, but still….

"You're hurt," she heard from the side. She looked over to the side as she yanked off the helmet with a sigh. It was Steve.

"Oh, don't worry about me," she said, trying to brush it off like it was nothing. "I'm fiiii—ooowwww!" she hissed lowly.

He removed the dented armor on her left arm, seeing the cut there. He frowned at it and looked back up at the woman's face, wondering why she was downplaying this. It was rather deep after all.

"Alright, we're getting you patched up. Come on now," he said. He gave her a small smile.

Was that concern? For her? Why? Sure, they had shared a kiss… one that left his lips all bruised swollen and red, but a kiss nonetheless. Even with that being a thing, they fought constantly. She resented him didn't she? Hated him for upstaging her childhood and taking away time from her father when he was out looking for his precious Captain America? Was that hatred ebbing away and transforming into a simple rivalry with definite sexual tension? That seemed really unlikely. And for the record she did _not_ feel a little spark of joy at the prospect that he was concerned for her and therefore, you know, cared about her on some level.

Nope.

Nada.

Absolutely not.

She had to push it away and keep these feelings down before doing something stupid like winding up with a broken heart.

"No offense Rogers, but I don't need you to lick my wounds," she said, wanting some serious distance between them.

Even if she was being pretty mean what with her snide comments and obvious attempts at keeping him at a distance he still pretty stubborn about helping her. Gingerly, he grasped her arm tighter in order to pull her to her feet. She stumbled slightly when trying to pull her arm free from him and back away, but Steve's reflexes were top notch. He held her tighter and steadied her properly.

"Come on, Toni, you're bleeding pretty heavily," he sighed. "Quit being so stubborn."

 **X**

"Ow," she whined.

"Hold still, I told you it was gonna sting," he said.

Steve knelt beside Toni, who was sitting in one of the many rooms on the ship. He dabbed at her cheek with antiseptics to clean and prevent possible infection. There was no doubt that was a possibility considering how deep and long the cut was on her face.

Now, normally he wouldn't do this for her. He'd tell her to take care of it herself considering the attitude and treatment towards him. But they did indeed fight and fix an engine together, her doing most of the work and taking most of the damage. So he couldn't really sit there and do nothing… he had a conscious after all.

So, the man picked up a thin white bandage and gently began placing it on her high cheek bone. As he focused on applying the tape gently he could feel just how soft her skin was beneath his large hand, how warm it was, and how clear it was in complexion. His thumbs lingered on her pale flesh for a while, basking in the simple contact far longer than he probably should.

"Uh, Rogers," Toni said.

Surprised by her voice, it snapped him out of his revere well enough to get him to remove his hand and realize that he was being a little odd in this particular situation. What was he doing? Sure, Toni Stark is beautiful; that's a given. Anyone would be when her father, Howard Stark, as rich as he was could get any gorgeous trophy wife he desired. That clearly transferred to Toni and what with her father's dark features she inherited as well she's clearly one beautiful woman. Howard's pretty lucky to have such a pretty and smart daughter.

Howard….

He thought he'd be reminded of him from being around his daughter so much. And therefore, he'd be in a constant state of depression and loneliness because he wasn't in a time period where everything was simple and made sense to him. But no, Toni was incredibly modern, preferring to stay ahead of the game, and make _modern_ inappropriate jokes. No, she made him look to the future. After all, she was nothing like Howard — minus the arrogance that is. But he was beginning to get used to it since her venom was usually directed at him after all.

"What? Are you having 'Nam flashbacks in that head of yours or something? Come on, stay with me buddy. Last thing I need is you to pour alcohol in all these cuts by accident," she joked. Always going with the jokes to diffuse a tense situation even if they were wildly inappropriate.

"Toni, you know I didn't fight in the Vietnam War," he sighed. "Now, hold still."

He soaked the cloth in more antiseptic and dabbed at the deep cut on her arm. She squirmed, trying to get away from the shocking sting. She hissed in pain between her teeth. Steve grasped her small arm in his tight fist below the wound to keep her steady. He began dabbing at the dark red crusted blood and the dirt there as well. Her muscles were so lean and soft beneath his hands. Women really were tinier than men, in fact he could wrap the entire circumference of her arm around his fist.

He swallowed when remembering those hard lips practically tearing apart his own. He could feel the raw anger in that kiss practically overpowering him. Whoever said women couldn't be tough despite their smaller stature and less muscle density obviously haven't met Toni… or Natasha for that matter.

Now Steve was an old fashioned kind of guy, mind you, and liked to take things slow, but damn it all if that wasn't incredibly hot. He hadn't felt that much passion course through him quite like that and honestly he wouldn't mind—

He shook his head, trying to stop a particular train of thought before it really took off, and began wrapping her arm in a bandage. "You know, Toni, I've been wanting to talk about that kiss—"

"Well, Spangles, let me sum this little conversation for you to save you some time," she interrupted. "You've got a thing, I've got a thing, and you want this to be a thing. But honestly, sweetheart, you're just wasting your time; I'm not the wining and dining kind."

When she turned to face him after he finished wrapping her arm she could see the hurt masked by deep irritation on his face. Her eyes once-overed his facial features since it was so easy at this close sitting proximity. Her eyes traveled from his blonde hairline, his furrowed brows, those currently stormy blue eyes, and down to those lips she kissed. Or should she say slowly healing destroyed slightly swollen victims on his face. She saw a shallow cut on his bottom lip and without a second thought she thumbed it curiously.

"I got you good, didn't I?" she teased lightly. She liked the softness beneath her thumb, feeling a small splash of arousal wash through her, but remembered that it was indeed old fashioned, go steady Rogers whom she lip attacked not some one night stand, fuck boy. She highly doubted he'd turn into someone completely different just to suit her needs. "But I'm sorry, sweetie, I'm not the kind of girl that does the whole relationship thing. That and I don't really _dip my pen in the company ink_ if you feel me."

She got up, stretched, rolling her arm, and then began walking off away from him. That quickly transformed Steve's initial anger to a continuously growing sadness in his chest. He was rejected. He was rejected before he even asked her or told her anything as if she was used to rejecting men on a daily basis. Did she have a lot of admirers and men asking her out? Seeing how she and Bruce 'got along' he'd say she was pretty good at getting men to fall for her. But what else does he know about her?

He knew she was an arrogant genius and had issues, childhood ones from what he gathered, and well other than that he didn't know all that much. That and they always argued so heatedly with each other probably because they're almost complete opposites in so many approaches. But if all that was true then why was there a dull ache in his chest from her rejection?

"Thanks for patching me up, Cap. See ya later," she gave him a smirk before leaving. "Remember, keep it classy, beautiful."

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	7. No Chick Flick Moments

**AnonMetro: Thank you, encouragement is always appreciated.**

 **Chapter Seven: No Chick Flick Moments**

"What?"

"Agent Coulson…, Phil, is dead," Maria told her rather thickly. "He died trying to kill Loki."

An intense sensation of nausea swept through her, causing her to immediately turn away. Phil is dead? The guy that practically had nothing to do with anything when it came to super powered baddies? Well, he had something to do with it, but he clearly stood no chance against creeps like Loki. So why did he stupidly challenge him and die for pretty much for nothing?

"Men are so stupid," she grumbled, walking away, wishing to be alone.

"Wait, Stark, you need to—"

"Please. Just leave me alone," Toni said.

She walked around aimlessly, dragging her feet around with her arms wrapped around her tightly. Her thoughts were a jumbled and swirling mess that she couldn't differentiate one from the other. Eventually, she got tired and slumped down in a fairly open room against the wall. Her head slumped forward, burying her face against her arms and raised knees miserably.

It felt as if she couldn't breath or move, a dull ache set in, a sort of numbness she really couldn't explain. Someone was dead, someone she knew, someone she took for granted and was generally mean to after one particular snub, and someone she could've saved if she wasn't preoccupied. The guilt and the sadness weighing on her was so heavy that it felt as if someone dropped a brick on her chest.

When she heard heavy footfalls and saw a large shadow cast on the floor she looked up rather angrily, defensive for being caught in such a weak and vulnerable moment. Even if tears weren't failing down her face, any sort of emotion like sadness or grieving — ones that made her feel like this — she considered it a show of weakness. Likewise she covered it up with anger, so when that concerned handsome face looked at her she lashed out at him.

"What do you want, Rogers?"

His first reaction was to meet her venom and raise it to viciousness, but the look on her face made him swallow his initial rebuttal. Instead of keeping up the deep glare on his face from being rejected by her he felt his features soften in concern. She was clearly unhappy, both angry and sad. He had to know what's got this usually arrogantly cheerful woman so upset. He figured it must be something pretty bad.

"What's wrong?"

She deflated quickly with a small sigh, looking away. The anger was quickly disappearing since she was unable to keep it up at the clear display of goodwill from someone who she figured would love to kick her while she's down. After all, they didn't get along and she did turn him down. He was either too nice of a guy or some kind of battered housewife that just kept coming back for more.

And honestly, she just didn't have the energy or the will to pick at him at the moment. She just wanted to be alone.

"I don't wanna talk about it," she said softly.

Steve looked down at her, brow furrowing in confusion at the feeling of sympathy and protectiveness in his chest for someone he constantly argued with. He shouldn't really care if she was upset especially after all the heated words exchanged between them, the way her lips attacked his, and how she said she never dated anyone and wasn't looking to make an exception for him. He should just leave, not show an ounce of compassion to her, but…

"Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

Her brows pulled together in confusion as she rested the back of her head against the wall. Why? _Why_ was the one person that had every right to just leave or call her some pretty horrible things, being so kind to her in a time of certain misery? She supposed that's what Steve Rogers, America's Sweetheart and Golden Boy, would do for anybody. She guessed this was the part of Captain America her father wanted her to emulate. Someone so virtuous that she couldn't possibly be like; she accepted that long ago, but that didn't mean it stopped bruising her ego.

Steve ended up sitting down at her side despite there not being an verbal indication of her wanting him there. He looked over at Toni's face, her eyes were closed. He didn't particularly know what she needed from him, so he gingerly patted her shoulder in an effort to try and be comforting to her without overstepping his bounds. It seemed appropriate and friendly enough.

She sighed, opening her eyes. She shook her head in irritation. "Why would Phil do something so stupid like that when he had absolutely no chance of winning?" she asked.

Obviously, she's either never lost anyone or isn't really good at dealing with the pain of their passing. If the inflectionless defeated tone of her voice didn't give it away then the dead hollow look in her eyes surely did. He couldn't deny the sympathy he felt twinge in his heart for her. He gently put his hand on top of hers, totally engulfing the smaller one with his own, finger tips brushing her thigh lightly.

"He was doing his job," he said, trying to be reasonable and make her feel better.

"I don't remember 'be a heroic dumbass and get yourself killed' as part of the job description," she said.

"This the first time you've lost a soldier?"

She removed her hand from his and her head whipped around so fast that her ponytail nearly smacked him in the face. Her face went from miserable and barely functioning to extremely pissed in less than 2.7 seconds. If he wasn't so thrown by this sudden change he would be pretty impressed.

"We are NOT soldiers!" she said furiously.

When she saw Steve's face go from mildly surprised to crestfallen at her biting comment Toni bit the inside of her lip out of guilt. Why did she have to lash out and hurt others when she was miserable? He didn't kill Phil. Why was she punishing him? She needed to apologize… or at least change the subject because apologizes are awkward and she didn't do them well.

"Okay, so…," she cleared her throat, "we have a runaway baddie with his mind controlling stick of doom. What do we do now?" she started clapping her knees lightly, something to stimulate her thought process. "We know he needs a decent energy source and he's… a diva." Suddenly, she turned to him, an epiphany obviously had struck her. "I've got it! I've got it!" she said excitedly, standing up quickly and rushing out of the room. "I'VE GOT IT!"

He was on his feet, amazement resonating within him. "Wow, she's good," he said, following in behind her to know exactly what she's discovered.

Running towards her suit, time is of the essence and all, she didn't expect a hand to grasp her arm and nearly pull her into an expansive muscular chest. She blinked a few times as she steadied herself in close proximity, practically almost touching all those muscles beneath that uniform. After a moment she looked into his handsome face curiously.

"Can I help you?" she asked after clearing her throat.

"Yeah, what's your plan?" he asked, releasing her arm. "And where's Loki?"

"Isn't it obvious?" she paused, waiting for him to answer. But all she got was a blank and expectant look from him. With a sigh of annoyance she said, "Am I the only one who can put two and two together? Loki, big attention whore looking for an endless power source and then there's me, owns an endless power source in a place where everyone's eyes are on you…." This time she waited for him to finish her idea.

"You think that… Loki is at Stark Tower in New York?" he asked.

"Ding, ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!" she exclaimed rather dramatically, hands thrown up in the air and everything. "Now, if you'll excuse me…."

She made to leave, to get to her suit, fly off, and go stop Loki. It was a simple plan that seemed like it would be pretty darn effective, but when trying to actually put it into motion that same hand grasped that same spot on her arm. She looked at him, wondering what it was now. His brows were pulled into a neat little line of concentration as she tried to pull her arm free with a few useless tugs.

"Um, Steve," she said rather slowly as if she was speaking to a special ed kid, "if we want to win you're going to need to let go of my arm."

"Stop talking to me like that," he said seriously. "I want to know if you plan on going alone out there?"

"Well, yeah, that's given," she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

She felt the hand wrapped around her arm tighten slightly and she eyed it in confusion. Then looked back up at his face. What? Was he pissed? She didn't recall saying anything too terribly mean in the last two minutes to Mr. Goody Two Shoes. Then again they fought so much maybe this was just his natural reaction to her: get pissed off when Toni is around.

"Not alone you're not. Remember what happened last time?"

"Yeah, you and Hammer Time got in my way," she said, finally pulling her arm free from his grasp, "and now I can do it without any obstacles."

He looked around and saw people starting to gather and watch from the sidelines, probably wondering if they going to start exchanging blows or not. Steve sighed and pretty much dragged her over to a more secluded area in an empty room that seemed to be used for general storage. Now, their conversation was far more private and less of a spectacle which made him more comfortable.

"Come on, Toni," he said, "you're not going there without backup. You're gonna get yourself killed."

She sighed loudly and obnoxiously as if what he was being the most ridiculous human being she's ever met. And in her eyes he was. If she didn't know any better she'd say he was worried about her and her safety. But that was rather absurd. Didn't Steve — rather, Captain America — think in terms of war and winning first opposed to personal reasons and feelings? That's how you win a war. So what was he doing?

"Fine. You, Romanoff, and Barton can go on one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s armed transport ships and back me up. But I'm going on ahead, I fly faster in my suit and with time being of the essence and all…," she said not finishing her sentence.

He opened his mouth, looking to interrupt her. She pressed a finger to his lips to hush him before he could even say a word. She didn't have time or the desire to hear it because, honestly, a guy that's looking to be more than friends showing her this much concern is just throwing her for a loop.

"Look, you big sap, enough of this chick flick crap," she said, receiving a highly irritated look from him. "If you're that worried about me dying then give my arc reactor a look at. You know… this blue thing on my chest that keeps me from having a bunch of shrapnel stab me in the heart and kill me," she supplied, seeing the look of confusion on his face. "If it's lit then I'm alive and if it's out I'm dead. Plain and simple."

She removed her finger from his lips rather slowly. She could see that her little 'pep talk' reassured him, but she could tell he was a little deflated and pissed. But come on now, this was a bit out of hand wasn't it? It was as if he was her boyfriend or something like that. She shouldn't have to assure him like this even if he seemed to want to start up a relationship or cared for her. They weren't in a relationship and she didn't particularly know how to handle the whole 'I worry for you because I like you' thing, so he should just trust she'll be okay or just treat her like any other teammate.

"See ya later, Rogers," she said.

She went to turn away and leave it at that. She had to concentrate on what she needed to do, not think of a super hot guy that's worried about her who's lips she's had a taste of. But when leaving him out of this small room she felt an arm wrap around her waist, draw her near, and lips brush against her cheek in a gentle caress.

For a moment, she thought her arc reactor gave out before it worked double time. Now, she found it incredibly difficult to keep her breathing even. Clearly, it had been far too long since she's had sex. But his body was so warm and muscular, and his lips were so soft against the sensitive skin of her cheek. Plus, it was pretty much out of nowhere and threw off big time. She closed her eyes briefly when she felt his lips move across her face and felt his hot breath against her ear, tickling it.

"Be careful, Toni," he said against her ear, causing her to stiffen considerably at his deep voice.

He straightened up, moving away from her face to look down at her. He smiled when he saw her cheeks growing redder and redder, and her eyes looking away uncomfortably. He couldn't help thinking she looked rather cute at that moment, wondering how on Earth he got Toni Stark of all people to blush like that. Considering her experience it wasn't exactly easy.

"Steve, I told you no more chick flick moments," she said, laughing drily. Then she grasped the hand around her waist and removed it slowly, unconsciously lingering on his large warm hand before releasing it from hers.

With that she left the room, trying to get rid of the redness on her face. _God dammit, Rogers_ , she thought, _grown ass muscled men shouldn't do such cute and sweet things out of nowhere like that without any sort of warning whatsoever. Do you want to give girls heart attacks._ She swore if there was a cuteness overload meter it would've broke and burst everywhere when he kissed her cheek like that.

"Jarvis, get my suit ready. I've got a Norse God to smash," she said.

"Yes, ma'am," the A.I. said.

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	8. Avenge the World

**AnonMetro: Yeah, that's what I was going for.**

 **Guest: Aw, thank you. Steve and Toni's dynamic is pretty adorable at times when their not going at each other's throats. Haha.**

 **Chapter Eight: Avenge the World**

She flew across the skies of New York this time, however, during the day and with a pretty faulty suit on that she's pretty sure going l to break at any given time. She felt the stutter of her flight stabilizers as she sped up to get to her tower faster. She worried about them giving out and dropping her hard on the pavement. Jeez, that engine really did do a number on her suit after all.

"Stark, we're heading your way now," she heard Natasha through the communicators inside her helmet.

"Sheesh, what did you do? Stop to get a Big Mac?" she scoffed without any real malice to her voice, just teasing to tease since back up as soon as possible would be really nice right about now.

When she got to her tower she slowed it down, stopping in front of Selvig on the roof. Honestly, if she didn't know any better she would swear he was either on meth or crack. He did not look good. His eyes were an inhuman possessed blue, his face had crust and wrinkles everywhere, and his clothes were a mess, missing a shoe and everything. She supposed that's what happened when operating a big generator and the tesseract under the control of a psychopath. Clearly, the mind control and rigorous work was not a good look for him. But who could blame him? But perhaps he could be reasoned with. After all, Natasha effectively 'reasoned' with Clint to get him back. Maybe she should try.

"Hey, Dr. Selvig, you can put a stop to all this. Why don't you just, you know, stop all of the right now and pretty much do the right thing here?"

"But why? The tesseract will show us a new world. A beautiful deadly world that—"

"Okay, I'm gonna have to stop you right there before you finish you're crazy talk," she said. Then she raised her hand shooting a blaster at the energy shield surrounding the tesseract. It reverted off the shield and she had to avoid being blasted by hastily ducking. She sighed loudly in annoyance. "Can't help crazy. Guess it's time for Plan B," she said under her breath.

She flew down at the landing pad aka the up top entrance. She spotted Loki immediately and let the machines remove her armor with each step she took. Toni thought she had a pretty arrogant and cheeky smirk, but that was nothing compared to the shit eating grin on the Norse God's face. He took cake for this one.

"Stalling me won't change anything," he said snidely.

"Uh yeah, cockroach head, that's not it. Actually, I'm here to threaten you," she said.

She made it down her platform, looking him square in the face as he pretty much strutted towards with a large smirk on his face. If anyone asked her she wore the whole arrogance thing better by far. Then again she did a lot of things better by far, but that was beside the point.

"You should've left your armor on for that."

She rolled her eye before spotting her shelf of finely aged alcohol behind the bar and that was where attention remained. She smiled, humming in delight at the idea of a nice glass of bourbon taking an edge off all the troubles that's been plaguing her the last two days. Like Steve, fighting a demigod, Steve, repairing an engine, Steve, getting hurt, and well Steve. Did she mention _Steve_?

She poured herself two glasses and pretty much double fisted it. One glass emptied quickly and then the next disappeared too right down her throat. She shook her head and let out a loud 'whoo' at the feel of it. "That hits the spot," she smirked, loving that familiar burn of alcohol down her throat and into her stomach. Then she looked up and saw a mild look of surprise and judgment on her enemy's face. "Aw, how rude of me," she said feigning sweetness, and in turn he looked a little more relieved, "you want a glass?" she asked, smirking at the expression on his face.

"No," Loki said rather snobbishly, lip curling a bit at her excessive drinking and obnoxiousness.

"You're loss, princess," she smirked.

He turned away in a huff, facing her big window and looking out into the sky as if he saw something beyond the city out there. She watched him curiously, craning her neck, then shrugged at his odd behavior. Then she took the opportunity to attach the controller of her new suit against her wrist to use when the time is right.

"The Chitauri are coming. Nothing will change that."

"Maybe, but you'll still have the Avengers to worry about."

He turned to face her again, confusion lacing his features. He was clearly not comprehending this and she was enjoying that for a moment. After all, she caught him not knowing something she did.

"Yeah, the Avengers, our little ragtag team of misfits that know how to kick some serious ass. And I would be one of them," she smiled pridefully, putting her hand to her chest, gesturing to herself. Then she downed another glass, starting to feel a little buzzed.

"Ah, I've met them, not impressed."

She shrugged her shoulders in agreement as she rounded the pretty granite bar and walked closer towards Loki. It was time to get the intimidating factor going.

"I admit it takes some time to get things rolling, but honestly you're just setting yourself up to get knocked down. 'Cause you've pissed off me, a man with _breathtaking_ anger management issues, a legendary super soldier that kinda lives up to legend, your demigod brother, and two master assassins."

He continued to smirk, "You're friends are scattered and your flying fortress falls from the sky."

She scoffed, stepping up to him. She was completely unintimidated by the fact that he was about a foot taller than her or that his glowstick of death was in his hand and really close to her. She's been threatened enough by bigger sticks held that are held by men physically larger in both width and height. But that didn't mean she wasn't cautious around him, seeing as he could lose it at any time.

"Yeah, repaired that and my friends are pretty much hauling ass to get here."

"I have an army," he said, trying to obviously one up her.

"We have a Hulk," she shot back, meeting and matching his stakes.

"I thought the beast had wandered off."

Beast? Really? Did that mean he was Beauty?

That was completely uncalled for and untrue to describe the man she met a couple of hours ago. During their fairly short time together she, of course, found him to be smart, nice, and such a gentle sweetie pie. She didn't understand why people only saw the bad in Bruce it wasn't as if he was the Hulk all the time or a horrible person when he wasn't.

"You're missing the point!" she said, looking real angry: brow set, lip thin, and eyes narrowed. "There's no pedestal where you sit upon and look down at the world in ruins at your feet. There's no version of this where you come out on top crowned in all your bad demigod glory." she thumped him hard in the chest, taking him by surprise. "Because if we can't save the world you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

There was a pause. She could see his smirky arrogant expression slowly transform to an incredibly annoyed one. Watching this change was kind of fascinating to her and made her feel kind of good that her little speech was getting him this upset. After all, if there was one Toni Stark knew how to do it was piss people off.

But she furrowed her brows in confusion when Loki moved in closer so much so that she swore that they could hold a book up between their chests. She frowned, tensing up as he looked her face up and down.

"How are your friends going to come after me when they're so busy fighting you," he said.

He raised his spear and went to tap her chest and she flinched in fear when it clinked against her arc reactor. Both of them looked at it in confusion as Loki tried it again. Yet again, it clicked and did pretty much nothing over her arc reactor. It seemed she had some sort of natural immunity, that was good to know.

"Huh? This usually works."

"Well performance anxiety, trouble getting it up," she teased lightly, "it's not _uncommon_."

She squeaked in surprise and pain when his hands wrapped around her thin and rather delicate throat and threw her to the floor near the window. She gasped and caught her breath after a moment of hard panting. She wasn't used to not having any sort of protection over her body when fighting.

"Not into the whole dick jokes thing, huh?" she said more to herself.

"Enough, you little whore," he said picking her up again by her throat.

She gasped, trying to claw herself free and get some air in her lungs. "Oh honey," she managed a smirk even through the choke hold on her, "I've been called worse." she wheezed.

Loki had enough of her and threw her out the window uncaringly. Her ridiculous attitude was obnoxious and for some reason incredibly resilient, so naturally he couldn't put up with Toni Stark any longer.

When her back went through the glass she immediately began tapping the device on her wrist repeatedly to summon her new, improved and fully charged suit on to come to her. You know, so that her head wouldn't crack against the pavement and effectively end her life. Her heart was racing rapidly, feeling as if it might burst not in a 'the incredibly hot guy that I really really like is here and whispering sweet nothings in my ear' heart burst. No. It was 'I'm going to die, help me now' heart bursting from her chest.

She let out a relieving breath when her suit encased her entire body and she was able to use her flight stabilizers to steady herself and keep from smashing into the pavement. With a more powerful bursts of gas from her hands and feet, she sprayed the citizens below and flew high into the air. She was pissed and now she was properly armed, all enemies beware.

"Suck dirt and die you piece of shit," she said. She blasted him with one of the mini rockets at the top of her wrist. It hit Loki straight in the gut, knocking him back with a loud cry of pain. She smiled. "That's for Phil," she said.

Suddenly, a loud screeching noise and a blue light in the sky alerted her to something occurring with the tesseract. She looked up in absolute awe at a black portal in the sky allowing the world to be invaded by flying blue aliens known as Chitauri.

"Holy Mother Theresa," she said under her breath.

Immediately, as if she was on autopilot she began to fly high towards them, rockets out, blasting them to bits like pretty fireworks on New Year's Eve, and essentially stopping them at the source. At first it was easy, she could keep up with all the Chitauri, but more and more started flowing in and she couldn't keep up with all of them. Some began to escape her constant rain of fire and head towards the civilians.

"Toni, can you believe this?" Steve communicated to her.

"Nah, I'm still… processing," she said, changing tactics, planning to get the strays that touched ground and were pretty much terrorizing the citizens down there. "Gotta go, Cap."

"Wait, what are you do—"

"Jarvis would you be a dear and cut Steve's line off?" she asked, not wanting any distractions while doing her job.

"Don't you dare!"

"Certainly, ma'am," Jarvis replied.

"Sorry, Cap, super busy."

"Toni, I swear—"

His line was effectively cut off, the connection severed for now. They were unable to communicate and now Toni could concentrate on the task at hand without Steve possibly telling her to be careful or say that he's pretty much worried about her. Not that she didn't want to hear him pretty much put into words how much he cares for her and her safety it was just it was incredibly distracting and when she was extremely distracted she made mistakes. Right now, she couldn't really afford making a mistake, so she pretty much had to say bye-bye Steve and hello Chitauri. It wasn't anything personal. Right now either crashing and getting killed by a Chitauri or listening to him tell her to be safe and pretty much remember how cute it was when he kissed her cheek like that.

She shook her head and concentrated. She glided across the ground, skimming it as she blasted away Chitauri that were terrorizing people that were beginning to hide out in various buildings. Basically, she was cleaning house, focusing on the mission at hand and putting Steve Rogers out of her mind.

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	9. Team Up

**AnonMetro: Thank you for the encouragement, it's always appreciated. ㈳7**

 **Chapter Nine: Team Up**

"Alright, Jarvis, tell me all its weaknesses," she said.

Toni was circling the Leviathan that emerged from the portal just a moment ago. The armored plating, the weird shape of its body, and the fact that it kept shooting out more Chitauri as if it's a slot machine in a casino was not a good sign at all. Oh boy. That did not look like it would be easy whatsoever. But then again this whole situation wasn't easy now was it?

"You must first penetrate that shell," Jarvis said. "It's very weak once you do that."

"Thanks. Yeah, breaking that armor looks… _real_ easy," she said more to herself than her A.I. "Good luck, me. You're gonna need it."

She continued to chase it down via flight, preparing to inevitably crush it. But she had to be smart about this. She didn't have the luxury of wasting power in her suit needlessly. These things weren't slowing down and Bruce wasn't exactly present yet to help with the progressively overwhelming amount of enemies. The sheer number of Chitauri and Leviathan present is what's intimidating; it was like having an ant infestation: there were tons of them and you have to stop them at the source before they produce more and tale over your home.

But cleaning house at the source wasn't exactly an option. The energy field causing the portal to open was impenetrable. So the course of action was to evacuate the citizens; have the Avengers, police, and army deal with the Chitauri until a permanent solution presented itself. She didn't know how long they could keep them at bay, but there wasn't time to think on that. Action is what's needed.

"Ha!" she exclaimed blasting at its face, gaining its attention effectively. "Okay, I've pissed it off. What now?"

It was flying at an impressive speed towards her, destroying tops of buildings in an effort to get to her. Well, she's screwed herself over if she didn't get her butt into action.

"Time to flee. Yep, I'm outta here," she said.

She flew across the skies, leaving gas trails in her wake. Perhaps running it into building, destroying its armor, and then hitting its weak spot would finish off the Leviathan. It was a plan as good as any. She looked back to see if it was still following her and it was, inching closer and closer. Yikes, it was time to kick it into higher gear.

"Yo, Romanoff," she said through the comm. "Banner there yet?"

"Yes, where are you?" she asked in her usual clinical tone.

"I'm bringing the party to you," Toni said.

She whipped around the corner of the long wide building. The Leviathan's long fin-like appendages took out the edge of the bricks with ease as it rounded towards her teammates. It seemed that Plan A was forgone and it was time for Plan B aka have her friends help her take it down.

"I don't see how that's a party," Toni heard Natasha through her speakers.

The brunette laughed. "Nice joke, Romanoff. Do you need to sit down? I know it hurts the first time," she said.

She knew she couldn't see the assassin's face, but she swore Natasha just rolled her eyes. Toni laughed again at the thought of that actually happening.

As she flew by she watched as Bruce stepped up to the plate. She watched curiously if he was going to suit up or not. It was kind of necessary considering that the Leviathan was barreling through and would easily take them out. Thankfully, she saw his complexion turning green and his body growing rapidly. She smirked, happy that Bruce decided to accept himself wholly and fully.

Finally.

She came to a skidding stop, hovering mid-air, when she saw him smash the Leviathan head on, causing its behind to fall towards everyone. Hey, at least the Hulk broke its armor, leaving it vulnerable.

"Hold on, guys, I've got this," she said.

She fired a small rocket from her wrist, aiming at the pink puffy skin there. It took a moment for it to implode, sending bits and pieces flying and scattering everywhere. She covered her face from the bits and pieces that flew. But once the debris of dead Leviathan was gone Toni landed slowly, right between Steve and the Hulk.

"Call it, Cap," she said, ready for the game plan since time was of the essence.

"Alright, I'm gonna need Barton on top, eyes on everything, calling everything," he began.

"Uh, Stark, I'm gonna need a lift," he said, looking at woman clad in armor.

"Alright screw gravity, let's go, Bieber hair," she teased good heartedly.

She grabbed ahold of him and flew upwards quickly, wondering amusedly if he'd vomit. She stuck him up top on the highest building closest to them and sat him down there before flying back down to the ground. She didn't bother saying a word to him. She couldn't think of anything really after all.

When she landed back down on the ground next to Steve she saw that Thor was up into the air and gone, Natasha was off blowing off Chitauri head's off with her hand guns, and the Hulk off smashing things. It looked like it was just the two of them.

"Sheesh," she said, "how long was I gone? Was it something I said?" she smiled playfully behind her helmet.

She felt a hard poke to her shoulder from his gloved finger which surprised her. "You better turn your comms back on for me, Stark. I swear—" he began.

"Okay! Fine, fine, fine," she said putting her hands up in surrender, trying to avoid a lecture from him. "You got me, I'm turning it on and I won't again. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Jarvis—"

"Already on it, ma'am," the A.I. said.

Steve sighed in irritation. She really did drive him crazy, drive him up the wall, drive him everywhere that made him want to pretty much pull his hair out. He had feelings for her, but almost every time she opened her mouth they argued. It was as if he was being pulled from two different sides and he didn't know when he'd be split apart right down the middle. But right now wasn't the time to think on that, technically a war had to be won here. His personal feelings didn't have a place even if he would really like to make an exception for someone who's clearly gotten under his skin.

"Toni, I swear, you're just the most infuriating person I've ever met," he said.

"Well, you're not exactly a bed of roses either, pudding pop," she said.

She rolled eyes. It wasn't as if she hadn't heard this all before. He certainly wasn't the first or last to find her irritating. But her personality and mannerisms were made Toni Toni and she wasn't about to change her ways just to make others happy. She liked herself too much for that bull crap.

"Just please leave right now. I need you at the perimeter, keep everything contained, don't let a single Chitauri out. Got it?" his tone was still laced with irritation.

"Yep, see ya later, Cap," she said.

He wasn't looking at her anymore, still annoyed and trying his hardest to stay concentrated on the task at hand. She had a way of making his focus slip such as worrying about well being when she did reckless stunts.

"Oh and Steve," she said.

"What?" he looked at her, tone coming out a little harsher than he intended.

"Don't die," she said before taking off into the air and out of his sight.

Well… yet again he was thrown for a loop when it came to her and just women in general. He was all prepared to ignore her and focus on what's at hand because he's had enough of Toni Stark, but the small sentiment and the sincerity in her tone pulled at his heart strings. Damn. How did she do this? It was like she was an expert at knowing what made someone feel fairly good inside at when her stupid jokes got to be too much. Definitely an expert.

He shook his head, taking off at a running start to clear out some Chitauri and save lives. Steve could think about it all later when so much wasn't at stake.

 **X**

"Stark," Clint said on through the comm, "there's a big one heading straight for the Yankee Stadium where a butt load of people are trapped. Mind giving them a hand?"

"How can I refuse," she teased.

She flew quickly throughout the skies, trying to get over to the Yankee Stadium as quickly as possible. People's lives were at risk and there was no time to waste.

She could see it: the Leviathan was bounding towards the people not slowing down for one moment. She knew she needed to hurry her butt up if those hoards of people were going to survive.

An array of of blasts left her suit, hitting the straight on, getting its attention fully. Since this was a rather narrow space between the buildings she made a quick turn, knowing the Leviathan couldn't do the same with its large body. When it attempted to follow her it easily crashed into the building head on. It wasn't mobile any longer, so she took this oppurtunity to land on its neck and blast its head where the armor broke.

As the smoke cleared from its crash she still stood on the back of the neck of the Leviathan, inspecting her gauntlets and her rocket launchers on her shoulders, wondering if there was any damage. On the digital chart laid out before her it didn't seem like there was any damage to it and she was satisfied with that for now. She was about to fly out and deal with more Chitauri, but something caught the corner of her eye.

"What the hell… are you doing?" she asked.

She saw what looked to be a baseball stadium's number of people gathered at one of the bridges to get off the island of Manhattan and away from the invasion being blocked by an incredibly wide truck full of junk.

"Oh, perfect timing," the man, trying to get his large vehicle through exclaimed. "You can come down here and make these people push!"

This just baffled her further. What the hell was he doing? Who the hell chooses material belongings before people during times of crises. It was ridiculous and just so completely horrible, maybe talking sense into him would work.

"As we speak," Toni began, pointing backwards, "my friends are out their risking their necks because assholes like you haven't let everyone evacuate yet."

"Of course!" he said. "You're supposed to risk your lives to save citizens and their property. Don't act all high and mighty just because a daddy's little princess is finally useful for the first time in her life."

She was done. It seemed reasoning with a complete and utter selfish animal was futile, it was time for some action. She had absolutely no problem attacking the guy who called her daddy's little princess. Yeah, she was pissed and this asshole was gonna get it. She hopped down off of the Leviathan, approaching the man as the people moved out of her path.

"If you think that 'daddy's little princess' is just going to sit around when you're sacrificing other people's lives for your own selfish reasons then you've got another thing coming," she said, smirking underneath her helmet as her blasters started warming up.

"How dare you!" he exclaimed, spit flying from his mouth. "Just one word from me and my guys will end your life just like that."

Two of his lackies attempted to rush her and take her out from each side, but she simply used their strength against them by shoving them on their backs. They fell face first, getting a mouth full of cement. Now, no one stood in her way.

"I wonder," she smirked behind the helmet, "who's gonna save your stupid ass now?"

She raised her arm, blaster making that familiar whine as a sign that it was powering up. She brought it down and kept from firing it when she heard him scream and tell her to stop. She waited for him to say something.

"Someone," he said, fear still evident in his voice, "move the truck."

Toni waited until they did, watching to see if he was good for his word or not. Once the huge semi-truck was gone and out of the way people ran across the bridge to escape Manhattan and the Chitauri. Their feet thundered across the pavement in their attempt to get gone. She couldn't really blame them.

"Another day another drama in the life of Toni Stark," she sighed dramatically to herself. "Well, it's time to kick ass and take names… otherwise I'm just gonna kick ass. Yo, Barton, what do got for—"

"Wait!" she heard the voice of a little girl say. Toni turned to her curiously. "Thank you, Iron Maiden." she said.

Her mom was the next to speak, "You really did save us. Thank you so much."

Toni honestly didn't know what to say to that. She felt something welling up in her chest at the genuine gratitude from people she's saved. She honestly didn't know what to say to that since it so rarely happened. Sure, she's signed autographs to little kids and grown ups alike, but this was completely different and she didn't know what to particularly do about it.

"You're welcome," she managed to choke out before taking off high into the air, leaving behind a smiling kid.

"Good call. Got anything else for me, Barton?" she asked.

 **Author's Note: please review. ㈳2**


	10. Through the Portal

**AnonMetro: I love Attack on Titan. Who doesn't?**

 **Chapter Ten: Through the Portal**

"AHAHGGG!" she screamed in pain.

Her body rolled and skidded across the pavement, scraping and denting her suit further than it already was. When she came to a stop she was flat on her belly, face down, and bruised from the deep impressions in her suit. She coughed hoarsely, trying to catch her breath and get some proper oxygen in her lungs. With shaking limbs she tried to stand and finish off the multiple Chitauri closing in on her. But one of the them used the butt of its glow stick and knocked her back down at the back of the helmet.

"Ah!" she gasped.

"Power at 30%, ma'am," Jarvis informed.

"Put it all in the thrusters," she said.

Jarvis said, "I just did."

She blasted all of the Chitauri in her way and took off into the air. Planning to gain some space and see if any of her teammates are getting their asses handed to them too. She flew off into the air, her thrusters stuttered as she increased her speed throughout the skies of New York.

"Stark," she heard Fury through her com. "There's a nuclear missile coming your way. Take care of it."

"Oh Jesus Christ… way to go Fury," she said sarcastically under her breath, blinking hard. "You want over eight million people to die, you psycho?"

"Shut it, Stark, it wasn't my call. Just get your ass over there and deal with it," he snapped.

" _Fine_ , bossy the cow," she said sarcastically.

With that said she took a U-turn and headed towards the missile in the sky heading in a downward spiral towards New York. She came up under it and grasped the sides, trying to think of a place to drop this. As she looked around she saw the portal was still spilling out Chitauri and Leviathan. _Perfect_ , she thought.

"I can shut it down," she heard Natasha's strained voice from her com. "Does anybody copy? I can close the portal now."

"Do it!" she heard Steve's voice.

"Wait!" Toni exclaimed. "I've got a nuke about to blow in less than ten minutes and I know exactly where I'm gonna drop it."

Steve looked up at Iron Maiden up in the sky with, indeed, a nuclear missile strapped along her back heading towards the portal. He knew if she went up there she wouldn't be coming back. It was a one way ticket to the Chitauri base where a nuclear explosion would occur and wipe everything out completely including her. It felt as if his heart literally dropped from his chest and fell out of his butt. Toni Stark was going to die. Even if she got on his nerves and they fought like cats and dogs, he cared about her more than he probably should. So yes. He cared about her and didn't want her to go to her death. No absolutely not. He wouldn't, couldn't accept that.

"No," Steve said firmly, "Toni, you are _not_ going in there."

"Well, it's either I make this little deposit or everyone here dies in a fiery explosion, so I kind of have no choice, hon," she said, laughing uncomfortably more to herself. She'd be lying if she said she wasn't just a little scared, but like hell she'd ever show that to anyone. So she masked it with humor and forced laughs. That made it better, right?

"Come on, there's gotta be another way," he said, trying to school his features and stay calm, but his throat was beginning to form a lump and betray him. "If you go up there you'll die."

She laughed, trying to ease the obvious heavy moment between them as she inched closer and closer to the black hole in the sky above Stark Tower. She wasn't going to stop, this thing across her back was going to blow in less than ten minutes knowing she could save everyone.

"Oh please, you know me. I'm the most stubborn… everything. Pfft, like I'm gonna die so easily," she said.

"Toni—" Steve began.

"Steve," she sighed.

She wanted to end this conversation now. She didn't know how much longer she could keep calm and make jokes to show that she was 'fine' with this. And honestly the fact that he was upset about this as well just made her feel worse about it. Not only was her decision to save the day and play the hero affecting her feelings, but those around her as well. She wished she had a better set of choices, but things weren't always roses and candy apples.

"I promise I'll make it back, sweet cheeks. Cross my heart and everything," she smiled ironically. She was just a few feet away and told him, "See you on the other side, blondie bear."

With that said she had Jarvis cut off her communications with him. She really didn't have the heart to talk to him any longer and she didn't want to waste what little power she had left — about 10% actually — on talking when she needed to focus.

She entered the portal, at first all she saw was the inky black sky of space before her eyes met the Chitauri base with thousands upon thousands of them heading towards the portal to invade Earth. She was so surprised and overwhelmed with seeing that many alien enemies and their huge base in space, she ended up letting go of the nuke above her.

"M-ma'am, Mr. Ro-ogers is…," Jarvis and everything failed in her suit. It all shut down, ran out of power and no longer operated in any fashion, going lax.

Oxygen was draining from her suit quickly. All she could do was let gravity do its thing and let her body be flung downwards at an alarming rate of speed. Before losing consciousness her retinas were overwhelmed with a blinding flash that was thankfully reduced greatly by her eye shields from the nuclear explosion. Then her body went lax, falling unconscious from the lack of oxygen in her lungs. She could no longer breathe.

…

"Get your ass into gear, Stark," Natasha said looking up at the portal.

It had been several long minutes and Toni hadn't reemerged from the portal yet. Everyone was waiting for their teammate to get back alive like she promised their captain. But by now the nuke had certainly gone off what with all the Chitauri and Leviathan dropping like flies so suddenly. So what was taking her so long?

"My friend," Thor said, putting his giant hand on the other blonde's shoulder, "the metal woman is not coming back."

Steve took a deep breath, wondering idly if Peggy felt exactly like this when he sank the ship to save America about seventy years ago. If this was the same feeling he was truly sorry for Peggy since he wouldn't wish this feeling upon anyone.

"Close it," he swallowed thickly.

Natasha paused for a moment before doing as told and began shutting the portal down. She pointed Loki's spear at the crown of the machine on top of Stark Tower. It sparked violently before the portal began closing slowly.

As he watched Steve felt his whole body go numb and collapsed to the ground, sitting down heavily. Why? Why when things went wrong for him they went horribly wrong? The first person, despite all the bickering, he's been rather smitten with after emerging from the ice was killed saving their lives. It felt like somebody just punched a hole right through his chest, leaving him unable to breathe properly.

"Look! The metal woman is emerging from the heavens!" he suddenly heard Thor shout.

The captain's head snapped up, wondering if it was true or if the Asgardian was playing some kind of a cruel joke. But he wasn't. Toni was indeed falling from the sky barely making it out of the closing portal. Overwhelming relief burst from his chest in the form of a giant smile on his face. She was alive.

"Son of a gun," he exclaimed softly.

Wait, something wasn't quite right. "She's not slowing down!" Thor exclaimed, coming up with the exact problem. He swung his hammer quickly trying to build up speed in order to go and get her.

"Is she—"

He was interrupted by the sound of the Hulk's roar and him slamming into the side of the building with Iron Maiden in his arms. At first both Steve and Thor were worried that the Hulk was looking to put the big hurt on her, but the two of them watched the Hulk drop down to the streets of New York. He set Iron Maiden down as the two blondes rushed over to see if the brunette was okay.

Immediately, Steve flipped her over and ripped the entirety of her helmet off her head. He shouted her name, trying to get her to say something, but it was clear after a moment that she was unconscious. Then he remembered what she said about the arc reactor on her chest. When it was lit she was alive and if it was off she was dead. Desperate blue eyes looked down at her chest and didn't see a trace of light there.

She was really dead.

He felt that lump in his throat form again, face growing hot, eyes stinging as he rested his hand on that stupid little light that should be lit. His head hung low as misery enveloped him once more. That sinking, gut dropping sensation that left him numb and pained came back full force in his chest.

"RRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!" the Hulk roared loudly, beating on his chest.

"Ahh!" Toni let out a loud gasp of surprise, fully awake and functioning.

Steve looked up in shock and relief at the sight of Toni alive and breathing. But he wasn't happy in the slightest with her, been through the emotional wringer, and planned on having words with her… except she was alive right here and now, in front of his eyes and looked haggard in a way that he hadn't ever seen her before. After all, she was technically dead for a few minutes before getting shocked back to life.

And Steve, well something apparently broke in him because before he could stop himself, he gathered Toni up in a tight hug, and started muttering things like, "Thank God," and, "You're okay," as opposed to, "Goddammit, you idiot," and "if you ever do this again…."

He figured that he'd save the lecture for later when she didn't look like she helped fend off an army of Chitauri by throwing a nuclear warhead at the source. Besides, right now, he was more interested in hugging her, and feeling her physically in his arms all warm and alive even if it was through her suit. So he tightened his arms a little bit more, pulling her just a little bit closer, whilst gently sitting her up in his arms.

"Uh, Steve," she laughed shortly before coughing softly into his shoulder, "oxygen is kind of becoming an issue, big guy."

"Sorry," he said, realizing he was probably hugging her a little tighter than he should.

So he pulled back, giving her some space even if all he wanted to do was her hold her tight and call her a reckless idiot for risking her life like that and technically dying for a moment there. She drove him crazy. He may like her quite a bit, but between the fights — though to be honest it kind of resembled two school kids dealing with a crush rather poorly — and her putting herself in danger he wondered how much he could take. But apparently the heart wants what it wants even if it really didn't make a whole lot of sense.

"Anybody mind telling me what happened after the whole, you know, knocked unconscious thing?" she asked.

"We've tasted victory and the blood of our enemies, my metal friend," Thor said.

"Haha, gross," she said playfully. "But other than the blood thing, yea, we won. I don't know about you guys, but I could sleep for about three months. I'm about to go comatose, my little darlings." she laid back down with a big thud, closing her eyes in an almost theatrical manner.

Steve rolled his eyes in amusement. Of course Toni would brush her near death experience with humor. She was fine. It just made him want to hug her all over again, but he curved that particular urge.

"We're not done here yet," he said. "We've still got one more thing left." he looked towards Stark Tower.

 **Author's Note: please review. ㈳2**


	11. Screw It

**I'm so happy! This story has reached over a hundred alerts! Thank all of you for following, favoriting, and reviewing this story. It means so much to me. ㈳6**

 **Chapter Eleven: Screw It**

"Yeah, I got winged," she shrugged with her good shoulder. "That and a few bruises and cuts, but it ain't that bad though considering everything that happened, you know, on the account of dying and all." she laughed lightly and scratched the back of her head with her usable arm, trying to ease the tension that showed clearly on his face.

They were in one of the many rooms that this hospital had to offer. Toni just got her arm put in a sling for dislocating her shoulder and would be unable to use her right arm for about nine weeks, according to the doctor. And, of course, the person to visit her as soon as visitors were allowed was Steve. How sweet.

"You know that's not funny, Toni," Steve sighed. "You could be dead right now."

She knew that and that's why she was trying to brush it off. If she didn't think about it then it wouldn't affect her. Right? That was what she was banking on after all, so she wasn't going to take it seriously and just not deal with it. If she didn't think it was important then it wasn't. She was going to carry on like she had and whenever somebody brought it up she'd just joke around it or tell them to shut up. That worked on anything else unpleasant in her life. So why wouldn't it work this time?

"Well, blondie bear," she teased playfully and received the exact look she wanted from him at her term of endearment, one of confusion and dislike, "I'm not dead, so that means it's automatically funny now. That's exactly how comedy works." she said sarcastically, unable to keep her smirk at bay.

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath out of frustration. This woman, he swore, was going to be the death of him. Of all the things to not take seriously it had to be dying. Didn't she know of the emotional wringer he's been put through because of her and her choices of heroism? Couldn't she be a little bit more considerate about it? Apparently not.

"You know sometimes I just wanna—" he began irately.

She sighed, "Yeah, I know punch me, strangle me, yell at me 'til you go hoarse? Yeah, yeah, I heard it all before, so pick your—" she was cut off mid sentence when two muscular arms pulled her into a gentle hug that totally encased her, surprising her deeply. "— poison." she finished lamely.

Steve smiled into her hair when he felt her sink into him and wrap her usable arm around his back. When she sighed against his chest softly he felt shivers along his skin and his smile just widened. Toni was safe in his arms and not saying stupid things that made him to pull his hair out or pull her hair out. He may like her and all, but sometimes she drove him up the wall and had his frustration levels skyrocketing. So he just pulled her tighter into him across her back, mindful of her dislocated shoulder.

Hugging was nice. Steve was nice. He smelt nice, felt nice, looked nice. He was so warm, so muscular, and so tall that she was pretty sure he was twice her size both width and height. So, this is what it's like to be liked by Steve Rogers Captain America? Well, from the stories her dad told her Toni knew he was a naïve beef cake, but she didn't think he'd be such a cute sweet man. Honestly, she thought he'd be a totally insufferable arrogant good boy. And she was somewhat right. He was a do no wrong good boy, but he wasn't insufferable or arrogant about his accomplishments. It was kind of cute, really cute actually.

"Can you do anything with your good arm?" he asked her.

"No… unfortunately Toni Stark Mechanic Extraordinaire is not ambidextrous," she sighed. "Mr. Leftie's had a free ride, so he's pretty damn useless."

"That's unfortunate," he said and paused for a moment before saying a little uncertainly. "Do you need help with that?"

Her brows furrowed in confusion. He was offering her help with this particular handicap? Why? Despite all their fighting and differences she knew Steve liked her. She just didn't know why. They fought like cats and dogs, and sure they shared a kiss, but why would someone like him fall for her? Why would he offer to help her with her arm troubles? He was probably the closest definition to perfection and that annoyed her to no end because, well, she wasn't. It hurt her pride and ego, so all she wanted was to ruin him and point out what flaws he does have constantly. So… what the hell was wrong with him for liking her when he could be searching for Miss Perfect out there? Was she some kind of project to him? A fixer-upper? Someone to change?

She had to know.

"Steve," she started, thrown off by the seriousness in her tone. She pulled back and looked him in the face. "Why do you like me… at all? I'm not exactly the poster child for 'Wonderful Person' and we don't exactly get along…. So why do you even like me?"

She expected some kind of brush off comment from him, but what she received was a sweet smile and him saying: "At first, I didn't particularly like you. You were rude, arrogant, really obnoxious, we always fought, and I didn't think someone like you could be a hero and make the sacrifice play."

"Boy, you just know how to sweep a girl off her feet," she said sarcastically, looking away from him, trying to mask the swell of hurt inside her.

"No, no," he said, placing his hand on her cheek to regain her attention. She looked back up at him and he continued. "That's how I used to think of you. I mean I still think a lot of that is true." she was about to leave, the expression on her face gave that away. "But when it counts you always come through. I mean, you saved us all at the risk of your own life. I didn't think you were capable of that and I'm sorry I said you weren't a hero. I was wrong. You're a wonderful person, Toni. I… I really like you and I… kind of hope that you, you know, like me too." his cheeks flushed slightly in embarrassment for putting his feelings on the line like that.

Now, Toni couldn't deny the butterflies that fluttered all throughout her stomach or the way her heart leapt in her chest if she tried. That was unexpectedly kind. Not to mention, she felt a bit better about herself after getting her ego stroked a few times and knowing how he really felt about her. She wondered idly if his hand on her face could feel the sudden warmth of her cheeks.

She looked up at him with a small smile. She saw his cheeks were still tinted pink as he looked expectantly at her. Okay, that's it. He's both the cutest sexiest man she's ever met and maybe in the whole world. She was sure of it.

"You know what, Rogers?" she said, looking into those pretty baby blues. She saw a look of confusion and apprehension in those eyes; probably because her tone came out a little harsher than she intended. She then said, "Screw it, going for it," and grabbed his shirt with her left hand and simply brought him in for a kiss.

Steve was embarrassed to say that he squeaked in surprise but he did. He sure wasn't complaining about this, but honestly he didn't expect her to kiss him. And soon that initial surprise turned into full blown happiness at the fact that she indeed likes him back and wasn't going to ignore it. He felt like a giddy middle schooler getting asked out by their crush. And before he could control himself he scooped her up into his arms, spun her around once, and kissed her back enthusiastically.

She laughed softly against his mouth in both surprise and then in happiness. He was just too cute and adorable the way he expressed himself. She didn't think she'd ever been picked up in her adult life before like that. And it was honestly rather sweet.

Suddenly, the door opened. "So, Toni, how's your— whoa," Bruce said, stopping dead in his tracks. Toni and Steve looked over, breaking apart. She laughed loudly at the look on Bruce and Steve's face. Both were semi-embarrassed about either getting walked in on or being the walker in on. "Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you guys. I'll let you guys back to that…. I'll see you later, Toni." he smiled slightly as he closed the door behind him.

Toni was still cackling loudly, head thrown back, and almost looking possessed she was shaking so much. It's been awhile since she's laughed at something and it was definitely appreciated after that battle with the Chitauri and going through a portal with a nuke. Well, it was funny until her shoulder got way too jarred from her shaking laughter.

"Owwwwww," she whined lowly, all amusement was gone from her face from that jolt of pain that went through her.

"Don't hurt yourself," Steve said chuckling at how ridiculous she was. "I mean, it wasn't that funny."

"Ehh, it kind of was," she sighed. "Even you're laughing, baby cakes."

"I'm laughing at you laughing," he said. He paused for a moment before asking. "And are you ever going to stop with those silly names?"

"Nope, honey pot," she smirked. "Let's get outta here. Hospitals depress me."

Toni walked over to the door preparing to open it, but a tan hand that seemingly came out of nowhere opened it for her. She blinked at it in surprise and confusion before shrugging and stepping through the open doorway and giving him a simple thanks. She didn't expect that. Normally, people didn't go out of their way to get the door for someone these days unless they were old. And technically Steve was old, but he also kind of wasn't so it was messing with her just a little bit. But hell, she wasn't complaining. That's pretty nice especially considering she only one semi-competent arm at the moment.

"Um… does this mean we're going out?" Steve asked a little certainly, looking at her face as he walked alongside her down the hall.

He wasn't exactly experienced with this matter. He had set up a date before to go dancing with a certain redhead, but they never proceeded with it for obvious reasons. And these weren't exactly the same circumstances nor was this the same person. Peggy and Toni are very different indeed.

"Thank god you're pretty," she teased and gave him a wink playfully. "Yeah, I'd say so, beautiful, unless you've changed your mind."

"No, I still like you," he said, hugging her to him briefly with a small smile. "Where do you want to go?"

She smirked. "Between the sheets with your sexy ass," she said looking up at his face to see his reaction.

Steve started to choke and cough sporadically on the air and what she assumed was her words. His face lit up like the fireworks on the Fourth of July as well making him look so very adorable. Toni started laughing loudly as they rounded a corner. God, it was just too easy to pick on him and make him embarrassed and uncomfortable like that. She just loved his blushing handsome face.

"Toni," he choked out.

"I'm teasing you, big guy," she laughed. "Nah, sweetheart, I'll pick you up and I guess we can go to dinner or a movie. You pick. I'm flexible."

 **Author's Note: please review.**


	12. First Date

**AnonMetro: They're so cute and writing them together, especially when Toni picks and teases him, is so much fun. Expect more cutesiness from these two on their first date. ㈳8**

 **Chapter Twelve: First Date**

Dating women wasn't something Steve had much experience with. Then trying to impress Toni Stark of all women on a date when you suck at it…? He figured it was pretty much the equivalent of getting a prostate exam. Steve sighed, feeling at a loss for what he should do. What he knew about impressing women from very little experience is that you had to give her gifts such as flowers, chocolate, and other feminine things to woo her on said date. But Toni wasn't really into 'girly' things. So what should he get her? A bouquet of wrenches or an AC/DC CD in a Godiva box?

He knew that over the course of seven decades romance isn't as innocent as it once was during his time. No longer did people ask to hold each other's hands nor did they wait until marriage to consummate their love. That and women have changed too: they stand up for themselves more, say what they really feel, and have definitely gotten tougher both physically and mentally. And nowhere was that more prominent than in Toni Stark. It was a different world, but Steve still believed some things just didn't go out of style. Even if she wasn't your typical swoon-at-the-sight-of-him-and-had-to-be-swept-off-her-feet kind of person he imagined even she would appreciate being given affection in a charming old fashioned manner.

It was decided.

Steve'll try impressing her on their date the old fashioned way and see where it went from there. Because — despite their differences and her inappropriate attitude and jokes — he couldn't help the way his heart leapt in his chest when she was around or the way her smile, salacious or not, made his insides turn to goop. He had feelings for her, no doubt about that, even if she carried a lot of baggage and issues it just made his heart side with her further.

Yep, Captain America was falling for Iron Maiden.

The next day Toni was held up in her basement working on new improvements on her suits. Various kinds of machinery were scattered across the lab, hastily drawn blueprints were haphazardly placed when Jarvis told her that her hard drive was full, many ideas arbitrary or not were listed along a long dry erase board that were hanging up behind her. But this semi-organized mess was nothing compared to its creator's appearance:

Her hair was sloppily pulled into a high and falling ponytail, oil grime and dirt was all over her skin and clothes, she was still wearing yesterday's clothes finding it pretty stupid to shower and change when she was just going to get all dirty again, and the bags under her eyes had bags of their own. She was looking real haggard. But she couldn't bring herself to care. She needed to keep busy to avoid sleep, and make her suit's capabilities and functions so much better to keep herself and everyone she cared about safe. Appearances be damned at this point.

Ring!

"Ma'am, someone is at the door," Jarvis informed her.

"Who is it? If it's not Pepper or Steve tell them to suck my ass. I'm busy," she said, busy welding determinedly with her left hand, working through the shaking and lack of coordination.

"It's a delivery person," Jarvis said. "Should I still relay your message?"

"No, I've been waiting for three freaking days for that stupid company to bring me the crap I ordered," she said.

She barreled through the door, wanting her new parts to tinker with right now. When she got to the front door she threw it open and was thrown by who was there. This was not UPS delivering new, pretty parts for her suit. No, instead this was a somewhat startled flower delivery lady holding out a large bouquet of red roses in a wrap of clear paper. What the hell?

"Um, hello Ms. Stark," she said, reading the name on the sheet in her other hand, "I have a delivery for you. I need you to sign this to say it was delivered." she smiled a little awkwardly at the frazzled genius.

"Uh sure," Toni said, taking the pen from the woman's hand and signed the bottom quickly.

"You're a very lucky lady. The guy who came in was pretty cute," the delivery woman smiled handing a still somewhat confused Toni the flowers and then began leaving. "Have a good day."

"Thanks," she said softly, looking down at the bouquet wondering who on earth would be sending her roses.

She saw a little white card that read, 'I'll see you tonight at seven for our date. I can't wait. Sincerely, Steve'

"Oh shit," she breathed.

She completely and utterly forgot about going to dinner with Steve tonight for their first date. How the hell could she forget something like that? She probably should've written that down somewhere in her lab next to her idea board, but everything about him just totally and absolutely escaped her mind after saying goodbye to him and the rest of the Avengers. Now, Toni was in full blown panic mode to get ready and not look like she didn't give a crap that they were going out. She didn't have time to enjoy the roses because she had what… two hours to get ready.

"Oh shit," she repeated, this time louder.

She was all chaotic and twirly trying to get ready with the short time she had. She tried her hardest to take the quickest shower in the universe while still shaving her legs and pits (which resulted in a few nicks and cuts that stung to all hell and back), then when her hair was dry from furiously toweling and hair drying it she tried to curl it and burned herself twice, and messed up so many times when trying to properly apply her eyeliner she ended up looking like a racoon before cleaning her face and doing it again with lots and lots of curses.

Then when she was finally slipping on her clothes rather hastily she heard the doorbell for the second time that day. She cursed loudly, hopping around her room trying to get her black tights on and failing miserably. She fell to the ground with a soft thud and grunt. She wrestled with her clothes painfully, feeling the material glide over her band-aide covered razor cuts. She hissed in pain at the way it rubbed them.

"Captain Rogers is here, ma'am," Jarvis informed.

"I know," she grunted, wrestling on the ground, desperately trying not to mess up her makeup and hair that she didn't have time to redo. "Tell him I'll be down in a minute."

Now, that she was done with her tights she worked on slipping her dress on with lots of difficulty with her left arm. Her arc reactor, of course, shone through the dark material faintly. Then she shoved her feet into a pair of flats rather quickly since she hated heels and avoided them anytime she could. She barreled out of her room, feet thundering down the stairs, trying her best not to wipe out and dislocate her other shoulder. Panting softly she opened the door, seeing a smiling Steve Rogers on her doorstep.

Her eyes immediately took in his appearance. He looked nice, dressed up in his own subtle Steve way. His muscles were pulled snug under the nice material, his hair was combed nicely, and looking so clean and handsome. Her eyes lingered in all the places she appreciated the most and pretty much eye molested him with her salacious stare.

"God bless America," she breathed, hand dragging down his chest rather slowly, loving the feel of it underneath her hand. "They just don't make guys like you anymore do they?" she said playfully.

"Well, hello to you too, Toni," Steve said, feeling heat rise to his face at her methods of flattery.

Then when she stepped through the door, locked it behind her easily, and faced him. Steve could see her fully now. Never had he seen her in a dress, hair down and done, or with a decent amount of makeup on her face. He swallowed. She was very beautiful and tonight she was his date. Happiness swelled in his chest and burst from him in the form of a smile.

"You look gorgeous tonight," he told her.

She felt her cheeks heating up at the compliment and the honesty in his baby blue eyes. The super soldier was just too sweet for the world. Honestly, she thought she felt a cavity coming in on one of her bicuspids because of how sweet he was. She smiled, trying to shake it off, and get control of the situation before her face exploded in red.

"Thanks for the flowers," she said, leaning in, grasping his tie, and smirked at him. "That was very thoughtful of you."

He smiled. So he was right; she did like the flowers. That was good. He was off to a good start in impressing her and making this a great date. He hoped he could keep Toni Stark, someone who has definitely sown her wild oats, entertained. But then again you shouldn't make the first date so good that you can't top the next. Oh boy.

"You're welcome."

"Come on, let's go," she said, dropping back down on the heels of her feet, and letting go of his tie slowly, "before I take you inside, rip off your clothes, and kiss you all over instead of going to dinner."

She smirked when she heard him choke on her words again while letting out a garbled version of her name. Tonight was going to be a lot of fun if he kept blushing like that.

…

"Toni," Steve's voice came out rather strangled as her black tights clad foot slowly crept up the inside of his leg, reaching slowly towards his thigh teasingly. He looked around the crowded and fairly quieted, aside from the soft music playing, restaurant to see if anyone noticed. No one seemed to and when he turned to look back at his sweetheart his face reddened, flushing brighter and brighter with each passing second.

She smirked amusedly at him, face resting in her good hand. It was quite obvious to any onlooker that she loved teasing him, loved seeing his face go red and look like he was wrestling with which head to keep his blood in. If she was lucky maybe she'd convince him to sleep with her on the first date; she was rather confident that she was pretty persuasive in this particular department. So she placed a hand on his and began tracing figure eights there, and did her best to try and look as innocent as possible like she wasn't picking him on him. Like she wasn't able to count all the coins in his pocket.

"Something wrong, Steve?" she tried her best to keep the tease out of her voice and blinked at him innocently.

"I," he began.

His words all but failed when her foot dragged up his inner thigh sensually. He shivered. He knew his date had always been a big flirt — in fact if seduction was an art form she'd be the equivalent of today's Leonardo da Vinci — but this was highly inappropriate. Even if she was being subtle and discreet, in her own Toni Stark way, this is a public place with other people around that could easily look over and see what she was doing. Yet, why was the thought of getting caught causing his arousal to spike further opposed to making him feel embarrassed and uncomfortable?

She looked at him with heated eyes. "Use," her toes moved up higher and higher, "your," back and forth her foot danced between his upper thighs, avoiding his crotch purposefully, "words," her foot finally rested on his groin, claiming her prize with an innocent little smile, "sweetie," she said, feeling the hard heat of his erection against her rather cold foot, enjoying the fact that she got him this excited from simple little touches like these. He really was a sweet, little virgin.

"Toni," he said. This time his voice was a little stronger, but it still had that deep undertone of arousal to it that she just enjoyed hearing and causing. He grasped her foot gently and removed it from his crotch, face completely flushed with embarrassment and innocent lust. "Please stop. This is completely inappropriate in a restaurant," he said in a hushed tone.

She began to laugh, loudly, trying to keep quiet and stop considering the look on Steve's face, but oh god it was just too funny. She just couldn't help it. He was so cute, gentlemanly, and shy about any sort of sexual matter. Obviously, this is all the product of being born and raised in the 1920's. Even if World War I ended and everyone was partying hard like no tomorrow during that time, being publically and sometimes privately sexual was still highly frowned upon. That didn't change before he was frozen either. She, honestly, just couldn't stop laughing, finding it almost pee your pants funny since this was the twenty first century after all.

"I'm sorry," she said, putting a hand over her mouth trying to stop her laughter. "I'm sorry. It's just that if you hadn't noticed, sweetie, we're kind of secluded…. So unless you fuck me on this table right now no one is going to notice."

"Toni!" he hissed, face going even brighter.

"Oh sorry, I meant _fondue_ ," she smirked, watching his blush encroach all the way down to his neck with somewhat fascination. "Has anyone ever told you how cute you are when you blush like that. You're like a big, beautiful, red balloon." she smiled.

See? It was like a prostate exam. He was inappropriately touched, uncomfortably blushing, and in a public place. Although, he'd never been turned on during a prostate exam or liked the 'examiner'.

But the real issue is how did she know about the whole 'fondue' thing? He had to ask.

"How did you know about the fondue thing?" he asked her.

"My dad," she sighed, holding his hand sweetly and wrapping her foot around his calf, deciding to cool it before he passed out from all the blood in his face and privates. "Yeah, he told me pretty much every story he had about you when he rarely spent time with me."

"Even the embarrassing ones?" he flushed.

"Mmhm," she smirked victoriously.

Steve flushed very brightly. Well, thanks Howard, now Toni knows every little embarrassing thing about me, he thought. He now expected her to make fun of him mercilessly and laugh with that brilliant smile of hers. He was ready for the bombardment of it until—

"You two ready to order or not?" the waiter asked, sounding as if he wasn't ready to take the order.

"Yeah," Steve said, thankful for the distraction from Toni's inevitable teasing about all the stories her dad told her. "I'd say we're ready."

"Alright? Drinks?"

"Hell yes," she said. "Vodka, two. Each." Both the waiter and Steve laughed at her good naturedly, thinking she was just playing around. "I'm serious," she said, face reflecting how serious she is.

"Alright then," the waiter said, not even bothering to write it down, and left.

Toni watched the waiter leave before grasping Steve's hand in hers again. She smiled at him, liking the feel of how big and warm his hands were. But she liked the look of his face better. Her eyes scanned his handsome features up and down taking in the pretty plump lips, his high cheeks, and his pretty bright blue eyes. She really really wanted to jump into bed with him, but seeing as he was old fashioned man and all he probably wouldn't go for it. But that just made her all the more determined to get him to sleep with her on the first date. Hopefully, her seductive methods would thaw out her capsicle.

"… didn't care at all, did he?" Steve finished.

"What?" Toni said, shaking her head clearing her thoughts, not catching what he said at all.

"I said the waiter didn't seem to care," he sighed. "So how's your arm?"

"Painful, but hey," she said, "at least I'm getting better with my left. I welded today. It was fantastic have that back in my hand, unexplainedly fantastic. So… what's Captain America been up to the last week or so after dealing with the Avengers stuff?" she asked.

"Nothing much," he said, rubbing his thumb back and forth across the back of her hand, hearing her sigh pleasantly. Apparently, this was very appreciated. "I've been working with S.H.I.E.L.D. actually and trying to adjust to, well, everything."

Yeah, she couldn't imagine the culture shock Steve underwent. Considering how quickly technology develops and how people's attitudes towards things have changed since then he must feel like an alien. Even though she made fun of him mercilessly for it in reality it really sucked.

"Well, you're not exactly alone, big guy," she winked.

"Yeah, I've got the Avengers… S.H.I.E.L.D.," he said.

"Hey! What about me?" she said, faking incredulity rather playfully.

"Oh yeah, you too," he smiled, laughing at the look on Toni's face.


	13. Briefly Engaged

**Chapter Thirteen: Briefly Engaged**

It was great to laugh. It had been way too long since she's laughed so loudly and obnoxious. In fact, Toni swore some martini came out of her nose. She didn't know if it was because she was a little bit tipsy or was it because she with Steve or both, but she was having more fun that she's had in the last week or so. And boy did it feel good.

"You're so ridiculous," Steve chuckled, as he watched her wipe her face rather clumsily. "You're the reason why I'm glad I can't get drunk."

"Oh please," she snorted playfully. "I don't get drunk I just have fun. Food, food?" she asked looking around for her dinner to fill her growling stomach. Her hands smacked the table louder than she intended as she looked at the slightly startled man across the table. "How long does it take to get our food here, blondie bear?" she demanded playfully. "I'm hungry."

He laughed at her still finding her absolutely ridiculous and obnoxious and overly so when she was a couple of drinks in. But she did have a point, drunk or not. It had been about forty minutes since the waiter apparently put in their order and the waiter hadn't been refilling their drinks very well either. That was just bad service and his tip was slowly declining by the minute.

"Yeah, this is a bit ridiculous," he agreed.

"Hey, dare me to act like their manager and scare the shit out of them?" she said, smirking as she looked over at the waiters and waitresses hanging around and not doing their job.

"No," Steve said quickly, fearing she'd actually do it. This was Toni after all.

"Okay, I'll dare myself, hon," she stood up a little shakily from the alcohol coursing through her veins. "Self, we're going to scare some brats shitless," she whispered to herself.

"Toni, no!" he said, grasping her good arm to try and persuade her to sit back down and be patient.

She laughed softly, pulled her arm away, and told him to relax because it'll be funny. She kept on, leaving behind her slightly anxious date to do what her stubborn idea was. As she grasped a black thick menu from one of the other patrons' table she made her way to the set of waiters and waitresses with a growing smirk, trying to keep her giggle fit threatening to emerge at bay.

Steve watched her curiously as to what exactly she was going to do. If there's one thing he was certain of dating Toni Stark can be a pain in the ass but she'll never be boring that's for sure. That's especially true when he watched her smack the menu across the table near all the waiters and waitresses like a crack of a whip. Then heard her scream at the top of her lungs like a true angry drunk:

"I AIN'T PAYING YOU ALL TO SIT AROUND ON YOUR ASSES ALL DAY! YOU WANNA GET FIRED!"

Despite himself Steve cracked up quite a bit at the sight of everyone in her general proximity jump nearly a foot in the air in absolute shock from her loud and obnoxious voice. The look of fear on all of the employees faces as she continued to intimidate them into doing their jobs was priceless.

"You gonna do your jobs?!" she demanded.

"Yes, ma'am!" they answered out of fear.

"Good," she said and slurred slowly. "Otherwise, I'mma gonna have to kick your asses."

She stumbled back towards her seat across from Steve and gave him a large smirk as she sat down with a soft thud. Toni was pretty happy with herself.

"You're insane," Steve said incredulously.

"I know," she smiled.

The rest of the date went pretty smoothly. The staff was on point now, and the two were getting along pretty well with lots of teasing from Toni and blushes from Steve. And when they got to her house she was going to definitely see if her lovely date would come into her bed tonight and have a little fondue.

When they made past her threshold her lips found his in a second. Her heart was beating so hard in her rib cage that she was certain that he could hear it. Idly, she wondered if her sweet innocent darling's heart was beating just as hard. She ran her hands up to his chest and felt his hard strong muscle thumping hard against her palms. Steve was just as excited as she was and that just made her want more, feel more, taste more, hear more of him.

So her hand slipped up and grasped his tie pulling him down with her onto her couch softly. Their lips broke apart. She heard him gasp softly in surprise from this particular move as she laughed softly at the uncertainty on his face before reconnecting their lips. She'd probably never get used to those cutesy little looks on his face whenever she did something remotely sexual. She wondered if that would ever change. Over time he'd probably be more sexy than cute. But hell, that ain't bad at all.

Curiously, her hands wound up his back, feeling the contours of muscles along his flexed shoulder blades and hummed appreciatively. It just made her want him closer. He was currently hovering over her, probably for fear of crushing her. But she wasn't having any of that, she wanted full on contact and to feel all of his body against hers. With a soft tug she tried to hint at that he should sink into her.

Steve's head was spinning. He was getting overwhelmed at having so much Toni all over him all at once like this. He wasn't complaining, not at all, he wanted her. In fact thought his heart was going to burst from his chest it was beating so hard, but when she pulled him into her warm and very feminine body he kind of wanted to call a timeout to catch his breath. But she didn't even give him a moment to pull back.

She traced the seam of his lips with her tongue, asking for entrance to see if he wanted to deepen this kiss too. It seemed so since she felt him slowly open his mouth to hers. She got a feel for him and a proper taste of him. She slowly pushed past his lips, delivering long sensual licks against his wet slick muscle before entwining it with his.

He couldn't help it, he groaned lowly into her mouth at the feel of her tongue doing such erotic things. His hands dragged up her body, feeling the curves of her sides and feeling her shiver before grasping the curled strands of her hair. This kiss was a thousand times better than their first where she practically tore his lips apart with her own out of what he could only assume was anger. This time, however, Steve could actually taste and feel her properly. It was slower, felt more intimate, like she wasn't rushing for it to be over. It was as if she wanted him at least half as much as he wanted her and possibly loved him just as much he did. That prospect and feeling alone was beginning to drive him wild, overwhelming him a little.

The slow magnetic building of heat between them was completely different than anything Toni had felt before. With her usual sexual partners she wanted to get the deed done with as quickly as possible and skip straight to the sex to quickly satisfy her sexual needs, but with Steve it was different. For one thing she didn't particularly have the urge to shove him aside the moment it was over and never want to see him again. That wasn't it at all. She just wanted to feel… to feel every inch of his muscled body with her hands, lips, and tongue then do it all over again to see if he still made those incredibly erotic noises and felt just as good.

So she went for it. She coaxed his tongue to come out and play, expertly wrapping her own around his, drawing it into her mouth, and then sucking on it slowly and profusely between her lips. She felt rather than heard the deep groan in the back of his throat as she felt the hands around her pull her in tighter. She took that as a go ahead to pretty much wrap on of her legs around him, pulling him down onto her fully and feeling every inch of him. And there was no mistaking what she felt against her inner thigh. Steve was hard. The knowledge and feel of what she was doing had this big of an effect on him was feeding her own arousal to the point she began to shake slightly with it.

She had never been this turned on before sex.

Never.

It was usually just a wham bam thank you… sir. And that was usually fine. That is until she started to get a taste of what sex and anything leading up to it is so far better when you care about the person you're with. And she did. She cared about Steve even if she couldn't quite put into words how deeply she cared for him yet, not one to talk about her feelings. But she could definitely express what she wanted right now. She went to grab and lift up his shirt to feel some of those delicious muscles flex underneath her fingers.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

Her phone rang loudly in her pocket, the tone she specifically heard she already knew who was calling her. She groaned in irritation, throwing her head back. If it wasn't for who it was on the other line she would've thrown her phone across the room. When she pulled her phone out and answered Steve was pulling back from her and running a hand through his hair.

He ran a hand down his face, trying to rid himself of his rather insistent erection as he heard Toni talk on the phone. His heart started to beat almost returned to its normal rhythm. He tried to distract himself from it by focusing on her tired sounding mhms and uh-huhs. And it was working. He couldn't believe he'd gotten so worked up so fast. Sure she's had a lot of experience at getting laid, typically didn't do the long-term scene, and second dates, but that was… he didn't really know how to describe it.

"Sorry," he heard her address him. "That was Pepper and it was about business, couldn't miss it."

"It's fine."

"So… wanna watch a movie?" she asked.

And that's what they did. They were sprawled out on the couch, watching one of Toni's favorites she knew Steve hadn't seen and would probably like, and enjoying a comfortable silence. But maybe a little too comfortable because her eyes were having trouble staying open since sleepiness was taking over her quicker than she liked. She was practically using her date's firm chest as a pillow.

"So Toni," he said through the sleep in his voice and heard nothing from his usual talkative girlfriend. That was odd. "Toni?"

He looked down at her and heard her snoring softly. It seemed she never really was quiet after all. He could see from the look on her face she looked as if she was finally getting some real rest for the first time in forever. After all, she was out like a light; he even shook her gently and called her name again to see if she'd wake easily. That wasn't the case.

…

Visions upon visions flashed before the back of her eyelids. Brown eyes moved back and forth rapidly. She shook slightly. Memories and feelings of falling from space and that sensation, horrible feeling of her heart and entire body exploding and growing cold, overwhelmed her in her sleep. Whimpers escaped her softly. She unwillingly remembered thousands upon thousands Chitauri heading toward them and subconsciously tried to block it.

"Nuha," she whined.

She violently awoke from her sleep, realizing she hit some something hard and fleshy with her left hand. Oh no. Who the hell did she bring home and let sleep over? Oh god. She didn't want to deal with this. She panted softly as she looked over sleepily and sweatily, wondering idly who the hell it was. She looked at the face of her bed mate. It was Steve. Steve in pajamas, Steve with his arms wrapped around her loosely, Steve who was now waking up. Oh thank god.

"Toni?" he questioned groggily. "Are you okay? What's going on, honey?"

"N-nothing," she said.

She needed space. She didn't want anyone to see her vulnerable, shaking, and left wide open for more hurt. She pushed off of him and rolled over on the other side of the bed, trying her hardest to calm herself and steady her shaking and breathing. These violent nightmares just took everything out of her, demanding she'd deal with the problem that she outright refused to deal with.

"You're shaking," he said.

He turned towards her. His brows furrowed in confusion as to what had upset her so much in her sleep enough for her to smack him and wake so violently. Even if she refused to talk about it he had this irresistible need to hold her close and comfort her in this clearly messed up state. He wouldn't just let her stew. He took the comforter, pulled it over her, and held her closely by her stomach. He felt her stiffen against him, going very rigid.

"What's wrong?" he asked against her hair.

"Nothing," she repeated softly.

She didn't really want to talk about it, always so guarded and tried to keep her feelings downplayed when it came to others. She never talked about the time she was kidnapped and was forced to make weapons for a terrorist group in the middle of a desert and planned to do the same thing when it came to the portal and dying temporarily. But the constant nightmares, causing little to no sleep and it was starting to wear on her.

So she just leaned back into Steve, held onto the warm hand on her stomach, and just tried to relax. Maybe she could sleep a little longer before being plagued by her nightmares again in his warm arms. Maybe… just maybe….

He felt her relax into him and heard her breathe deeper and far more even than before. She was no longer shaking and feeling the aftershocks of a horrible dream anymore. He had heard about his war buddies back in the day dealing with night terrors when something traumatic happened out on the battlefield. Perhaps Toni was dealing with something similar, after all she did deal with a near death experience. He'd ask her about it when she was awake and definitely get some answers, but for now he'd settle for sleeping in each other's arms.

X

The next day Jarvis had woken Toni via her instructions the day before. Well, more accurately woke both her and Steve up from their sleep. She sat up with an annoyed groan, wanting more sleep and to get rid of the headache that was the result of her excess of drinking last night. She rubbed her eyes tiredly, and then realized that she still had last night's makeup on.

"Crap," she said tiredly.

"Good morning, ma'am," Jarvis said. "You have a sufficient amount of time to get ready and drive over to Stark Industries for you 8:00 am appointment."

"Crap again," she groaned.

She hopped out of bed and rushed over to her dresser to begin getting ready for the day and this particular appointment she had in the morning. Apparently, this guy demanded to see her and not Pepper who dealt with people a whole lot better than she did. And she knew exactly why. In her hustle and bustle to look professional and not like she just rolled out of bed, she left behind a groggy Steve still in her bed.

"Toni, what are you doing?" he asked her as he stretched his stiff muscles before standing on the carpeted floor.

"Getting ready. Obviously. Big busy day, you know," she said, trying not to sound too rushed and like she was avoiding a particular subject.

She was in the bathroom, scrubbing at her face persistently with her facial wash at the sink. Normally, she'd just wear the same makeup she wore last night the next day if she didn't wash her face before bed, but she kind of screwed that up when she wiped the sleep from her eyes, smearing her makeup and all.

"So? Anything important?" he asked curiously.

"No," she emerged from the bathroom adjacent to her bedroom, fully dressed with her hair pulled in her typical ponytail. "Well, yes. This guy represents this company that wants Stark Industries to partner up and fund. So I have to listen to his pitch and determine whether or not it sounds like bullshit or not. And it's gonna be real awkward because— never mind," she said quickly, shaking her head softly as she slipped on a pair of heels she hated wearing with a passion, but they looked professional nonetheless.

"No, why is it awkward?" he asked her, following her out her bedroom door, curious since she brought it up after all.

She stopped and faced him before letting out an almost dramatic sigh. She really didn't want to tell him because he was her boyfriend now, but she kind of had to tell him because he was her boyfriend. She wondered if he got jealous since what she was about to tell him would clearly test that.

"I really don't wanna tell you this, but the guy I'm meeting up with, Aldrich Killian," she said, pausing for a moment to let out another sigh, "we were… we were briefly engaged."

She honest to god wished she could've filmed the look on his face and the wonderful thing is the security cameras in her home probably had this moment fully documented. The look on Steve's face went from expectantly for her to tell him, to mild surprise, to full blown astonishment as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing. His blue eyes were bugging out and his jaw had pretty much hit the floor. Toni started cracking up rather loudly at the expression, nearly doubling over. You just couldn't fake that kind of expression, it was genuine shock.

"Are you serious or is this one of your sick jokes, Toni?" he asked, thrown by her spasms of laughter.

"Oh no, sweetheart, I'm dead serious," she said, gasping for air. "It's just that look on your face. It was just… beautiful."

"You were actually engaged?" he said, trying to believe the words coming out her mouth.

"Yeah," she said, wiping a tear from her eye from her intense laughter. "My parents liked him, we were friends, he asked, and I kinda just went with it. Then I kind of realized what exactly I was getting into, freaked out, and ended it." then she inquired almost to herself as if she wasn't talking to her boyfriend any longer. "Wonder what he's been up to? Ooh, I hope he has a girlfriend and you and me can go on double dates with them. I've never been on a double date, that sounds like so much fun!"

She was getting more and more hyped about the possibility of a double date as Steve was slowly spiraling further into absolute shock. Toni, his Toni, the Toni that he had to pretty much convince that they should go out and give this a try because she hated commitment so much was briefly engaged? And now she was going to meet up with her ex-fiancé to discuss business? He just couldn't wrap his head around it. He knew she made a lot of stupid jokes, but she was never this cruel or serious about them. So this was real and she wasn't teasing. She was actually going to meet up with her ex-fiancé today.

"Steve, are you okay, sweetie?" she asked. "You're turning colors."

 **Author's Note: review please.**


	14. Jelly Belly

**Chapter Fourteen: Jelly Belly**

"Seriously?" she asked, dark brows furrowed in irritation. "You don't want me to see a potential business partner? … Really? _Really_?"

"No, I don't want you to see your ex-fiancé," he said.

He figured he wasn't really the jealous type, well, to this extreme. Sure, he was mildly jealous about the possibility of Peggy hooking up with Howard. But he hadn't been this jealous. After all, he'd never had his girlfriend being around an ex-lover, a once betrothed ex-lover actually. Why did she have to do business deals with someone who almost married her? And how in the world did Killian ever get her to agree to almost marry him? How? She was like a wild stallion that refused to be tamed — a free, very difficult to deal with, spirit. Sure, he didn't want to marry her right now, but the thought came to mind occasionally seeing as some time soon he wanted to start a big happy family: a wife, children, maybe a couple of pets in a nice neighborhood — the whole nine yards. And he could see himself having that with Toni.

"I may flirt, and have definitely slept around a lot, but I am NOT a cheater. And just 'cause I used to be engaged to this guy doesn't mean I'll suddenly say 'hey, I must have you now, screw me into the desk right in front of the whole world!' Do you really not trust me?" she looked at him with her piercing brown gaze, growing angrier and angrier by the second.

She was pissed.

Oh hell yeah, she was pissed. Usually when she got this enraged her stomach acted up, hot shocks of pain there and right now it was starting to rear its ugly head. She thought the whole jealousy thing was kind of hot initially, it showed that he cared and it got him all fired up, but good god she was so very wrong in this situation. She had never been this so irritated. Not only was her fidelity put into question but her integrity as well. She could just slap him, stomach punch him, and all that jazz. But she wasn't five years old for crying out loud, so she didn't.

"It's not _you_ I don't trust. It's _him_ ," he tried to explain calmly without yelling but he was failing fast.

"That's not something you should even worry about!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air in exasperation. "Worry wart, I can reject guys just fine. Anyway, who's to say he isn't married or in some kind of relationship right now? It's been like I don't know ten years. I'd say hell yeah he's most definitely moved on!" she took a deep breath, so severely enraged in this moment that she couldn't breathe properly. "You know what? I'm going. You can just stew in your jelly belly soup for all I care. I have a meeting to get to."

She received a look of absolute confusion from her super soldier honey. "What?" Steve asked, taken aback by her lingo.

Why couldn't people, especially when he couldn't hear all that well over his roaring jealousy, speak plainly in this century? He was confused and annoyed enough as it was without her yelling at him with odd metaphors to get him even more irritated at trying to figure it out.

"I never know what you're saying," he exclaimed. "Metaphors, references! What is all that?!"

"The future! We're freaking living in it!" she shouted back.

"You know sometimes you make me wanna… pinch you in the eye!" he got out with some difficulty.

Her teeth grit. She was getting angrier and angrier by the second. He wanted to pinch her in the eye? Well, he wasn't the only one. In a moment of deep rage, she shoved him hard in the chest. She saw the look of surprise on his face, but that didn't stop her or even faze her.

"Bitch, I hope the fuck you do!" she shouted bitingly and poked him hard in the chest, causing him to back up even further. "You're gonna be a dead dumb ass!" she jammed her finger into his chest again.

She was about to shove him again, but he grasped her hand and brought her into him rather harshly causing her to gasp in surprise sharply. She got a close up of his very irritated face; his brows were drawn in a tight knit, lips were pursed, teeth were grit, and eyes were narrowed. Instead of causing her to deflate and back down in fear like most sane people would it just angered her further. She had an ego to keep inflated after all.

"Watch your language," he said sharply.

"Why don't you kiss my ass, you pansy!" she said bitingly.

She didn't know when they both started breathing harshly, but since he was so close to her she could feel it on her face quite clearly. That and their breaths were starting to mingle in this indiscernible congealed mess. And was it wrong that her pulse was quickening and she felt a strong thrum of arousal course through her? She was still pissed, oh hell yeah no question about that, but she kind of wanted to—

"Ms. Stark, you're going to be late for your appointment," Jarvis said.

Both of them were snapped back to reality rather quickly. Steve let her hand go, and Toni wiped said hand down her face to try to shrug this off and gain some control over her breathing. It seemed that Jarvis's little interruption eased the tension and made them realize how out of hand this was getting.

She went to move away from him. She was still sizzling in anger underneath her skin, but she needed to go not argue this pointless crap. But as soon as she took a few steps away from him she felt strong fingers wrap around her arm gently. She looked back over to him curiously, eyebrows still furrowed in irritation.

"Are you still going to see him?"

"Yeah," she said, pulling her arm free rather harder than necessary. "I'll see you… whenever, I guess. Let yourself out."

With that she opened the door and slammed it closed behind her in finality.

Well… it looks like they just had their first fight as a couple — it was going to happen sooner or later they were Iron Maiden and Captain America after all — and he didn't even stop her from going to see Killian. God help anyone who tried to boss her around. And it wasn't as if he wanted to control what she did and say exactly who she could hang out with — he wasn't her parent for crying out loud. But he couldn't help the jealousy that swarmed in his stomach when she said she was going to meet someone she was previously engaged to. How would she like it if he went to go see someone that he almost married? He imagined she wouldn't, but no such person existed in his life to make a point.

He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Jarvis, how long ago was Toni engaged to that guy? … And why?" he asked, picking up his coat and slipping it on, preparing to leave.

"Mr. Killian, sir?" the AI inquired. "Well, Ms. Stark was engaged to him when she was around the age of nineteen. Mr. Killian asked her hand in marriage and she accepted, then her parents perished in a car crash, and she terminated the relationship. The engagement lasted for about six months."

"Good God," he actually said aloud.

"I cannot tell anyone any further information per Ms. Stark's request, sir. I cannot go against my protocols."

God, no wonder Toni was so messed up. She lost both parents at age nineteen in one fatal car crash? Jeez, no wonder she used humor to deflect her issues and keep people away from her feelings and at a safe distance. He, personally, felt better when he got his problems off his chest, but he supposed that didn't work for everyone. Which, by the way, annoyed the ever living crap out of him. Because when she got stressed or was around someone that stressed her out her jokes turned so sour and brutal. He was living proof of that right there, what with being the target of the inadequacies set by her crappy dad.

He sighed, "Jarvis, I'm leaving. Do you know where a spare key is or can you lock up the house yourself?"

It was still weird talking to someone who wasn't real.

"I can manage, sir."

It was decided then. He'd give Toni her space and then they'll work it out when they both cooled off and he could think clearly without yelling until he went hoarse from her stubborn and argumentative nature. But he couldn't deny the jealousy still burning in his chest at the fact that Killian had been such a big part in her life and almost got her to marry him, that and Steve didn't know if Killian was over Toni, so he might try to get back together with his sweetheart. The thought made his stomach lurch. Honestly, if Killian tried that Steve would probably beat him senseless and he usually never turned outrageously vicious when it came to well anything.

Loving Toni Stark made people crazy. He was sure of it.

X

Normally, Toni didn't really have road rage; she had road irritation. And there is a difference between the two, you better believe that. Road rage is when someone pisses you off so badly that you'll take out a sawed off shotgun in the passenger seat and shoot out their tires. Road irritation is when a person just yells profusely and gets fairly angry with bad drivers. Now, with that stated it was a miracle Toni didn't crash or burn her tires from almost flooring her pretty and very expense Lamborghini. People drive their emotions, no doubt about that.

The billionaire was lucky she didn't crash and burn in a fiery inferno of car parts and gasoline.

She approached her headquarters, cursing softly as she scoffed her heels since she so rarely wore them and wasn't exactly used to the feel. Thankfully, she burned off her anger on her fast furious esque drive over there. She opened the door and just waved to row of secretaries behind their long sleek desk since she didn't exactly need an appointment to see… anyone really being CEO and all. She headed for the elevator tiredly, sipping on her water bottle since her head was still kind of pounding from her hangover and her

fight with Steve. But she put all of that out of her mind when the elevator dinged and revealed a perky strawberry blonde friend.

"Hey, Toni," Pepper greeted.

"Hi."

"How'd your date go last night?"

"Fine," she sighed softly. "It's the aftermath that's, you know, not so fine," she smirked. "Hangovers and jealousy sucks."

"You got drunk and jealous? Did you get into a bar fight?" Pepper looked mildly amused. "I'm gonna laugh if you won with your shoulder like that."

"No, well, kind of. It's a long story," she sighed. "I'll tell you all about it after I deal with this guy," she said, tilting her head towards the conference room. "Is he here yet?"

"Yeah, Happy's doing a thorough investigation on him," she sighed, obviously thinking he's ridiculous. "He takes this job so seriously. God help him."

"Well, it's better than having a slacker," she sighed. Then after a pause she said. "I'm going in."

Facing your ex is never fun or easy. Even if about ten years had passed it was incredibly hard no matter who the couple is. And boy oh boy Toni was not looking forward to seeing her ex, but she felt a little ego boost since she was indeed successful in her business life, crime fighting life, and in her love life — even if her significant other made her want to wring his pretty muscled neck right now. But she was doing fairly well in her life and wasn't about to embarrass herself in front of Killian, so that was a helpful thought. It made her ego skyrocket like nobody's business but helpful nonetheless.

She stepped into her office and took a seat at her desk. She planned to brag, boast, and pretty much show how good her life is — minus a few night terrors and her insomniac tendencies to avoid them. But he didn't need to know that. That's what concealer and coffee is for. She just couldn't wait.

A knock on the door alerted her that her 'appointment' was here. She stood up, feeling victorious. She smirked and told him to come in. She was going to own this meeting and come out looking like a boss ass bitch.

But her smirk faltered for a moment at the sight that greeted her. From what she could see ten years did him a favor. He was pleasantly tan, had golden blonde hair, and a pretty decent looking face. But she wouldn't let this throw her off her game. She was pretty sure that she was still the winner in 'who's got the best life after our break-up'. This wouldn't be near enough to flatten her ego.

"Toni, hey," he greeted.

"Hi," she greeted back, standing up as he took her hand to shake it before she even had the chance to offer it to him. "You've changed," she offered.

"So have you," he said, his hand lingering in hers a little longer than she preferred.

She pulled her hand away and walked towards him. She decided to dismiss it entirely. There was still a need to subtly brag about her accomplishments in life and that wasn't going to be squashed any time soon.

"So what's up? What brings you here after what… ten years?"

He gave her a cheeky smile and took her hand again much to her surprise. She made a small little noise of surprise in the back of her throat. But she let herself be lead just to see where this was going. He guided her up on top of her coffee table and followed behind her. With one click of his device a three dimensional holographic image of Killian's brain appeared.

"This," he answered near her ear.

She ignored it. It was innocuous enough, she didn't need to make a fuss about it. Plus, ignoring it was easier to begin with, no need to get uptight. It wasn't her style anyway.

"Um, I'm no doctor, but I'd say you've definitely made some changes to brain, buddy," she said, falling back to her familiar jokes.

"Yeah, I'd say so too. This heightens every function of your brain, to the point that someone can even regrow limbs they've lost," he said, pointing towards different aspects of the display.

Her brows deepened at that particular knowledge. As amazing as it would be to regrow limbs and all that, but heightening everything seemed rather… dangerous. Yeah, dangerous and highly weaponizable. She was done with deadly weapons, been done with it for years, and was never going to go back to that. If her long months stuck in the desert held captive by terrorists wasn't a lesson learned about weapons she didn't know what would be.

She carefully stepped off the table — she'd never been good with heels and probably never would be. Then she looked up Killian as the hologram disappeared and he joined her on the floor.

"This sounds highly weaponizable," she said. "Sorry, Al, I'm not funding it."

For a moment, she saw a look of brief anger flash across his face. But then that charming smile from earlier appeared again, confusing her. Was it a fluke? She hadn't been sleeping that well lately, so her mind wasn't as sharp as usual. She'd write it off as a fluke unless she saw it again.

"That's alright, I understand," he said. Then he grabbed her hand in both of his, that smile of his growing. "Why don't you let me take you out and catch up?"

Well, he was definitely more confident than the last time they talked. But she couldn't help the little laugh that briefly left her. Obviously, he hadn't found someone else if he was asking her out like this, and how suddenly everyone wanted her now. Sheesh, did the whole 'actually being in a committed relationship' made guys want to date her? It was pretty funny to her.

"Sorry again, man, I'm kind of seeing someone right now," she said, pulling her hands back at her side as he gave her look. He probably wondered if she was kidding. "Yeah, I know, it's weird right. _Me_. _Committing_. Who would've thought?" she laughed shortly.

She wouldn't blame him if he was pissed, considering commitment was the reason she dumped him. Sure, she wasn't getting hitched, but even dating on a regular basis without sex was kind of odd to her. Especially considering she'd gotten so used to being so casual with anything intimate.

"Well, I know he's a lucky guy," he said, his voice a little tighter than before, his body stiff too.

"Or stupid for trying to take this one on," she laughed. "But no, no, he's actually a sweet guy even if he does grind my gears at times."

 **Author's Note: please review.**


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